Infection with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, fell to the lowest historical level in 2023, the UN AIDS agency (UNAIDS) announced today.
"In 2023, there have never been so few people infected with HIV since the end of the 1980s when the epidemic was at its peak," said the annual report of UNAIDS on the occasion of December 1, the World Day against the infectious disease.
According to that agency, between one million and 1,7 million people will be infected with HIV in 2023. In the last stage of infection, this virus causes AIDS, and then the patient's life is threatened by various minor diseases because the body no longer has the immunity to fight against it.
Just over 600.000 people died of AIDS in 2023, the UN agency said, adding that this was the lowest death rate since the peak of mortality more than 20 years ago.
Despite this favorable trend, UNAIDS, which has set itself the goal of practically eradicating the epidemic by 2030, believes that this progress is too slow.
Around the world, about ten million infected patients do not have antiretroviral treatment, the therapy whose use has enabled a large number of patients to live with the disease.
A preventive treatment has recently been introduced that accelerates progress against the disease, but its implementation remains very slow, the report concluded.
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