Global AIDS treatment surges to 4 million thanks to increased investments

New York, NY-ONE welcomed today’s United Nations report that found the number of people being treated for AIDS worldwide surged to more than 4 million people last year, with enormous gains in several sub-Saharan African countries.

“Thanks to smart, scaled up international efforts to fight AIDS, more lives are being saved than ever before,” said ONE President and CEO David Lane. “In just five years, the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving lifesaving AIDS treatment has jumped 30-fold. These investments, made through programs like the Global Fund and PEPFAR, are working and reaching more people every year. Yet despite this great success and these millions of lives saved, the need still outpaces treatment. Millions still suffer and die for lack of access to drugs. It’s important we continue to build on these smart, accountable efforts and simultaneously scale up our prevention efforts to stop this disease.”

The annual UNAIDS progress report on the response to the AIDS pandemic found that over 1 million people were put on lifesaving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in just the past year, a 36 percent increase. Of these 1 million people, 825,000 live in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) jointly support 2.95 million of the 4 million people now on ARVs. Countries in Africa that are focus countries for both these programs showed some of the greatest increases, including South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda and Malawi. The majority of financing for all HIV programs at the end of 2008 comes from domestic resources of low- and middle-income recipient countries (52 percent), followed by bilateral donors (31 percent), then multilateral donors (12 percent) with the remainder of financing coming from private philanthropic ventures.

Despite this success, 5 million people worldwide who need treatment remain without treatment, more than 3 million of them in Africa. In addition, 2.7 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2007, the latest year for which there were estimates. Though treatment is a critical part of the response to this pandemic – without it millions would die needlessly – this disease must be beat through scaled up prevention activities as well.