UN expects: AIDS could be wiped out by 2030

AIDS could be wiped out by 2030: UN expects

Afp, GenevaGlobal AIDS-related deaths and new HIV infections have fallen by over a third in a decade, raising hopes of beating the killer disease by 2030, the United Nations said yesterday.With more than half of the 35 million people living with HIV unaware they are infected, the battle is far from over however, said Michel Sidibe, head of UNAIDS."If we are smart and scale up fast by 2020, we'll be on track to end the epidemic by 2030, so that AIDS is no longer a public health threat," he told reporters."We have a fragile window of opportunity, because what we do over the next five years will determine the next 15."In a report released ahead of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Australia from July 20-25, the UN agency said AIDS-related deaths dropped to 1.5 million in 2013 from 1.7 million the previous year.That was the sharpest annual decline since the epidemic's peak in 2004 and 2005, and marked a 35-percent drop from the 2.4 million deaths seen in both those years.New infections also fell to 2.1 million last year, down 38 percent compared to the 3.4 million in 2001.