Almost 5 million people were infected by HIV globally this year, one of the highest jumps since the first reported case in 1981, taking the number living with the virus to a record 40.3 million, the UN said yesterday.
The 4.9 million new infections have been fueled by the epidemic's continuing rampage in sub-Saharan Africa and a spike in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the UN's UNAIDS body said in its annual report, released in New Delhi ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.
"Despite progress made in a small but growing number of countries, the AIDS epidemic continues to outstrip global efforts to contain it," the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 said.
More than 3.1 million people have died this year due to AIDS including 570,000 children -- many more than the total deaths in all natural disasters since last December's tsunami.
In Asia, China and Myanmar are not doing enough to prevent the spread of AIDS, the report said, while praising Thailand as the Asian success story for bringing about a decline in the number of new HIV cases.
China had made slow progress in fulfilling a 2003 pledge to provide antiretroviral treatment to all who need it, the report warned.
"By June 2005, about 20,000 people were receiving the drugs in 28 provinces and autonomous regions," the report said.
The majority of China's cases were found in Yunnan and Henan provinces in the Guangxi autonomous region, it said.
HIV cases had been found in all 31 provinces of China, the UN's annual report said, warning that the combination of commercial sex and injecting drug use "is likely to become the main driver of China's epidemic."
China officially has an estimated 840,000 people infected with HIV, including 80,000 with full-blown AIDS. The prevalence rate is 0.1 percent.
"In Myanmar, limited prevention efforts led HIV to spread freely -- at first within the most at-risk groups and later beyond them. Consequently Myanmar had one of the most serious AIDS epidemics in the region," it said.
In contrast, Thailand offered something of a success story in the fight against AIDS.
"By 2003 the estimated national adult HIV prevalence had dropped to its lowest level ever, approximately 1.5 percent," the report said but noted that only 51 percent of Thai sex workers reported using condoms.
Indonesia and Pakistan were warned of being on the "brink" of a major epidemic.
On India, which has more than 5.13 million people living with HIV/AIDS, second only to South Africa (5.3 million), the world body said overall HIV prevalence continued to rise as it was affecting high-risk population groups.
AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized in 1981, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in history.
However, for the first time, there is solid evidence that the increased efforts to combat the disease over the last five years are starting to result in drops in new infections, said UNAIDS chief Peter Piot.
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
RSS