NYT: Gains Made to Contain AIDS, but Its Global Spread Goes On, U.N. Says

[DeepModem Mom]

Gains Made to Contain AIDS, but Its Global Spread Goes On, U.N. Says
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
Published: June 3, 2005


UNITED NATIONS, June 2 - Although a small but growing number of countries are beginning to contain the spread of the AIDS virus, the epidemic is expanding in all areas of the world, outpacing the response, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said here on Thursday.

"It is clear that the epidemic continues to outrun our efforts to contain it," Mr. Annan said at a special session of the General Assembly to address the disease.

At the session, delegates received a report on the progress that countries have made since 2001, when the United Nations' member countries unanimously declared that they should work to halt the spread of AIDS and H.I.V. and begin to reverse it by 2015....

***

Studies have failed to determine why the AIDS epidemic has been most severe in southern Africa and why certain countries, like the Philippines and Sri Lanka, have low infection rates. Mr. Annan said that billions more dollars would be needed annually for decades to keep people free of H.I.V. and to treat the 40 million people who are infected.

Though much of the report was grim, Mr. Annan cited some bright spots in fighting AIDS, among them the Bahamas, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Kenya, Thailand and Zambia....H.I.V. rates among people 15 to 24 years old seemed to be falling in some areas most ravaged by the disease....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/health/03aids.html

[G_j]

1. the headline paints a somewhat less alarming picture

than the actual report does.

"..the epidemic is expanding in all areas of the world, outpacing the response, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said here on Thursday."