(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-01 15:22

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said Friday the number of people on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs it is funding has doubled in the past year to 1.4 million.

These figures may give the impression that a once-irrevocable death sentence is now a manageable chronic disease.

But experts and advocacy groups say this is a dangerous mirage.

"Despite substantial progress against AIDS worldwide, we are still losing ground," says James Shelton of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in a commentary appearing on Saturday in The Lancet, a London medical journal.

Despite progress in the drug rollout, treatment is still only available to about 10 percent of those in need, notes Shelton.

In developing countries, "the number of new infections continues to dwarf the numbers who start antiretroviral therapy in developing countries," he says.

Indonesia - which the UN said last month has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in Asia - marked the day with the launch of its first national campaign to promote the use of condoms, which currently account for less than one percent of contraception use.

The campaign - which will involve condom distribution, education on the benefits of condom use and safe sex practices, as well as a speech next week by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - aims to remove the stigma of condom use.

Stigma is also a concern for campaigners in South Korea, where the number of HIV/AIDS cases stood at 5,155 as of the end of September, the Korea Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The rate of new infections has been falling from 14.2 percent in 2004 to 11.5 percent in 2005 and 10.4 percent in 2006.

But experts cautioned the real number of HIV/AIDS infections would be much higher as South Korea has a strong social prejudice against the disease.

"Fixing the social prejudice is almost as urgent as fighting the disease itself," said Professor O Myung-Don of the Seoul National University Hospital.

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