Press Release Summary = 25 Million people died since 1980 back when the world did not care that a few gay men were dying. Today we are concerned that a few people have died over the past 4 years because they came in contact with some infected chickens!
Press Release Body = Twenty-five years after AIDS was first recognized, the world is in better shape than ever to put an end to the disease but is falling short on many fronts, the United Nations said.
(Most people never get to see the end days of someone near death with AIDS) \"Despite some notable achievements, the response to the AIDS epidemic to date has been nowhere near adequate,\" reported UNAIDS, the U.N. agency that coordinates the global campaign against the devastating disease. In the years since U.S. doctors first described it in June 1981, AIDS and the HIV virus that causes it have \"spread relentlessly from a few widely scattered hot spots to virtually every country in the world, infecting 65 million people and killing 25 million,\" UNAIDS said in its 10th annual progress report. Researchers have produced \"mountains of evidence about how to prevent and treat this disease,\" said the report, based on data gathered by the U.N. system from 126 countries since December 2005. But anti-AIDS initiatives and their results vary widely from country to country, and many are falling short of the benchmarks they set for themselves in a landmark special session of the U.N. General Assembly in 2001, UNAIDS said. (AIDS induces extreme pain within various parts of the body killing a person slowly) Among successes since the last special session, the report cited evidence of significant behavioral changes: More and more people are using condoms, having fewer sex partners and starting to engage in sexual activity later in life. The global AIDS incidence rate is believed to have peaked in the late 1990s, and about 1.3 million people in the developing world are now on life-extending antiretroviral medicines, which saved about 300,000 lives last year alone. Blood for use in transfusions is now routinely screened for HIV in most countries. More Testing and Counseling Four times as many people are seeking testing and counseling today than five years ago, according to surveys from more than 70 countries. In 58 countries reporting data, 74 percent of primary schools and 81 percent of secondary schools were providing AIDS education, UNAIDS said. But some 4.1 million people were nonetheless newly infected and 2.8 million died in 2005. There were 4.9 million new infections and 3.1 million deaths in 2004. Fewer than half of young people were actually knowledgeable about AIDS, and small numbers of individuals injecting illegal drugs or having homosexual sex benefited from any type of preventive services last year, surveys found. The global supply of condoms was less than 50 percent of what was needed, and antiretroviral drugs, while more widely available, remained costly and hard to get. Most important, because infected individuals still suffer from ostracism and discrimination, the vast majorities of the about 40 million infected people in the world has never been tested for HIV and are unaware of their status, it said. While $8.9 billion is expected to be available in 2006 to combat AIDS in developing countries, $14.9 billion will be needed, UNAIDS said. By 2008, it predicted, $22.1 billion would be needed, including $11.4 billion for prevention plans alone. The report called on national and international leaders to transform the global response to AIDS from a crisis-management approach into \"a strategic response that recognizes the need for long-term commitment and capacity-building.\" It recommended more funding, new safeguards to ensure the money goes to those most in need, and ambitious efforts to end the stigma attached to infected individuals. The report called for more and better-targeted education and prevention strategies, more treatment opportunities, and more drug research, particularly on drugs for children, whose needs \"have been largely left out of the research agenda.\" It also advised governments, \"where necessary,\" to consider using emergency mechanisms in international trade law to bring down the cost of patented AIDS medications. \"We know what needs to be done to stop AIDS. What we need now is the will to get it done,\" the report said. (Remember that 25 Million people died since 1980 back when the world did not care that a few gay men were dying. Today we are concerned that a few people have died over the past 4 years because they came in contact with some infected chickens! )
\"Because this pandemic and its toll cannot be
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