The United Nations used World AIDS Day on Thursday to call for an "exceptional response" to the global crisis as African patients criticised politicians for failing to tackle a disease that kills millions each year.
The United Nations said that while adult infection rates had dropped in some countries due to increased use of condoms and changes in sexual behaviour, the epidemic continued to grow.
The number of people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, had reached its highest level ever in 2005 at an estimated 40.3 million people, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said. Nearly half of them are women.
AIDS has killed more than 3 million people in 2005.
"The lessons of nearly 25 years into the AIDS epidemic are clear. Investments made in HIV prevention break the cycle of new infections. By making these investments, each and every country can reverse the spread of AIDS," Piot said.
A number of Asian countries marked the day by handing out free condoms, offering mobile phone games and holding flag-festooned rallies to promote awareness of the disease. The mood was more sombre in Africa, where rage and remorse combined as the continent worst hit by the global crisis remembered its dead.
"Money that has been earmarked for HIV/AIDS has gone into everything else but AIDS," fumed Meris Kafusi, a 64-year-old AIDS patient in Tanzania who only recently began receiving life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.
"Organisations that say they are dealing with AIDS are always in seminars or workshops. They should be buying food for widows and orphans ... but instead of that, you find them earning daily allowances of $50 for sitting in a room discussing us. Is this fair?"
Sub-Saharan Africa remains ground zero for world-wide HIV/AIDS deaths as well as for new infections - cutting life expectancy in many countries, leaving millions of children orphaned and reducing agricultural output in hungry countries.
The latest UN estimates say 26 million of the 40 million people infected with HIV world-wide live in Africa. Political leaders say taboos need to be broken to tackle AIDS. In France, President Jacques Chirac said schools should be equipped with condom vending machines and youths should be able to buy a condom for 20 euro cents ($0.23).
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on his people to shed their inhibitions and start talking openly about safe sex.
"This, quite obviously, has to change if we are to succeed in creating awareness of the hazards of unsafe sexual practices," he told a gathering of young political leaders. India says it has 5.13 million people living with HIV/AIDS, the second largest number after South Africa.
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