This report documents the extraordinary progress achieved over the past decade in the health sector response to HIV. Access to evidence-informed HIV prevention, testing and counselling, treatment and care services in low- and middle-income countries has expanded dramatically. This progress demonstrates how countries can surmount seemingly intractable health and development challenges through commitment, investment and collective action.
The global incidence of HIV infection has stabilized and begun to decline in many countries with generalized epidemics. The number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy continues to increase, with 6.65 million people getting treatment at the end of 2010. Almost 50% of pregnant women living with HIV received effective antiretroviral regimens to prevent mother-to-child transmission, spurring the international community to launch the Global Plan towards the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive. What would have been viewed as wildly unrealistic only a few years ago is now a very real possibility.
Recent published evidence from clinical trials has confirmed the powerful impact antiretroviral drugs have on the epidemic as part of an effective package of options for HIV prevention. For the first time, the prospect of a microbicide that contains antiretroviral medicine is providing additional hope to the women in sub-Saharan Africa who continue to bear a disproportionate burden of the HIV epidemic in this region.
Despite these advances, still too many people are acquiring HIV infection, too many people are getting sick and too many people are dying. Of particular concerns are trends affecting Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where the numbers of people acquiring HIV infection and dying from HIV-related causes continue to increase.
