UNAIDS: Global
AIDS epidemic is only getting started

With major new HIV outbreaks in central Asia and China and a record 5 million new infections worldwide last year, the AIDS epidemic's impact has still yet to be fully realized, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS executive director Peter Piot said Wednesday. "It's still an emerging epidemic. Just now we're getting into the globalization phase," said Piot, who was in Rio de Janeiro to address the Third International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment, which ended Wednesday.

The global epidemic is also undergoing "feminism," changing from a disease that largely affected gay men to a disease infecting roughly equal numbers of women and men, said Piot. About 60% of those infected in southern Africa are female.

At the conference, doctors, health professionals, and public-policy experts documented only incremental progress in the AIDS fight. Scientists said hopes for a vaccine in the near future were remote, and they could not predict when a new class of anti-HIV drugs to fight resistant virus would reach the market.

"There is no one magic bullet; what we need is a tool kit," said Helene Gayle, president of IAS. "There were 5 million new infections last year, more than any previous year, and yet only one in five people have access to prevention information and services." Just one in 10 gay men and one in six sex workers around the world have been reached by prevention programs, UNAIDS estimates. (AP)