The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN AIDS program said on Wednesday that they would not reach their heavily promoted "3 by 5" goal of treating 3 million HIV-infected poor people by the end of the year.
Officials of several health agencies fighting AIDS blamed problems in the drug supply chain and shortages of health workers.
At the same time, they expressed hope that the number of people dying of the disease annually could stop growing by next year.
About 1 million people in poor countries are receiving antiretroviral drugs, said Dr. Kim Jim-yong, director of the WHO's AIDS department, meaning the program is not on track to reach the goal announced in late 2003. The agency set 3 million as its goal because it seemed to be a reasonable target that could inspire donors and poor countries to act quickly.
Donors have committed US$27 billion over the next three years but have delivered only US$9 billion, the health agencies said.
About 6.5 million of the 40 million people infected are so sick that they are within two years of death and need treatment immediately, officials said Wednesday in a telephone news conference from Geneva, where the WHO is based. For the first time, they included an estimate for desperately ill children -- 660,000, a tenth of the total.
The number of people desperately in need of drugs has grown by about half a million since the treatment goal was announced.
Progress has bogged down for several reasons, health officials said. Many countries have small model treatment programs, but not full-scale national plans.
Problems with drug delivery have been greater than expected, including issues as simple as countries not guaranteeing locked warehouses and trucks for the drugs, which are valuable and toxic if misused. Poor countries have few doctors, nurses and pharmacists.
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