Via JMG: UNAIDS Report: Eight Million Lives Saved Globally Since Year 2000

NBC News reports:

The world has made "extraordinary progress" against AIDS, slashing the rate of new infections by more than a third and saving nearly 8 million lives since 2000, a new report finds. Fifteen years of work to make sure more people get drugs that can keep them healthy and keep them from infecting others has had spectacular effects on the pandemic that has killed nearly 40 million people, the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS says in its report. Distribution of condoms has averted around 50 million new HIV infections since the HIV pandemic started in the 1980s, and other programs to educate people about how HIV spreads and to encourage safe sex have helped, also. "The world has delivered on halting and reversing the AIDS epidemic," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

But temper your celebrations because more than a million are still dying every year. (Tipped by JMG reader David)

 

Labels: HIV/AIDS, science, UNAIDS, WHO

Reposted from Joe Jervis