UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believes progress is possible to halt and begin to reverse the spread of AIDS globally by 2015 -- despite a rising rate of infection that means 12,000 people are diagnosed with the HIV virus daily.
"Make no mistake: In some way or another, we all live with HIV. We are all affected by it. We all need to take responsibility for the response," he told a General Assembly session reviewing the UN response to the epidemic on Monday.
Last year, UN member states renewed pledges and set a new global goal to have universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. One of the UN Millennium Development Goals agreed to by world leaders at a summit in September 2000 calls for halting and starting to reverse the spread of HIV by 2015.
Monday's session was organized to review the goals' progress.
"In the course of a quarter of a century, HIV has infected 65 million people, and killed 25 million," Ban said. "Today, 40 million people are living with HIV. Almost half of them are women. More women -- including married women -- are living with HIV than ever before."
According to UN statistics, there were 2 million people receiving treatment last year, representing 28 percent of the estimated 7.1 million people in need, an increase of 700,000 from 2005.
But the report showed that the rate of infection continues to increase.
An estimated US$18 billion is needed this year and US$22 billion next year to achieve universal access to prevention and treatment programs in low- and middle-income countries, according to the UN.
Ban said ensuring access to treatment, prevention, care and support is "critical" to achieving the goal of halting and reversing the AIDS epidemic -- and this means tackling diseases associated with HIV especially tuberculosis, investing in vaccines and microbicides to prevent and treat the virus and ensuring funding.
"It means mustering the political will to address the factors that drive the epidemic -- including gender inequality, stigma and discrimination," he said.
Ban stressed that fighting AIDS will remain a UN priority and that he will make every effort to mobilize funding.
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