updated 5:57 p.m. ET July 29, 2008

WASHINGTON - The numbers of people dying of AIDS and becoming infected with the virus that causes it have dropped modestly in recent years amid intensified global efforts to fight the disease, a U.N. agency said on Tuesday.

About 33 million people globally were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus in 2007 — most in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert — down from 33.2 million in 2006, the annual United Nations report on the AIDS epidemic said.

The number of AIDS deaths fell for the second straight year, with an estimated 2 million people succumbing to the disease in 2007, according to the report by UNAIDS. AIDS deaths had climbed steadily through 2005 since the disease was first identified in the early 1980s.

UNAIDS reported last year that 2.1 million people died of AIDS in 2006.

The number of people newly infected with HIV, which ravages the immune system, fell to 2.7 million in 2007 from 3 million in 2001, the report said.

Sub-Saharan Africa remained the part of the world most heavily impacted by AIDS, with 67 percent of all people infected with HIV and 72 percent of deaths occurring in the impoverished region, according to the report.

The report said the number of new HIV infections has fallen in several countries, but rates of new HIV infections are rising in many countries including China, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam.

HIV infections also are increasing in countries like Germany, Britain and Australia, the report said.

Uneven progress
"A six-fold increase in financing for HIV programs in low- and middle-income countries (from) 2001-2007 is beginning to bear fruit, as gains in lowering the number of AIDS deaths and preventing new infections are apparent in many countries," according to the report.

"Progress remains uneven, however, and the epidemic's future is still uncertain, underscoring the need for intensified action to move towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support," said the report, launched ahead of an international AIDS conference in Mexico next week.

The report was released five days after the U.S. Congress approved a large expansion of a program to fight AIDS and other diseases in Africa and other parts of the world, sending it to President George W. Bush to sign it into law.

The measure calls for $48 billion over the next five years to help treat and prevent AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. That is up sharply from the $15 billion Congress initially funded for the first five years of the program that began in 2003. A total of $39 billion of the money is intended to fight AIDS.

"Gains in saving lives by preventing new infections and providing treatment to people living with HIV must be sustained over the long term," UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot said in a statement. "Short-term gains should serve as a platform for reinvigorating combination HIV prevention and treatment efforts and not spur complacency."

The report noted that about 3 million people are now receiving AIDS drugs in low- and middle-income countries. In most parts of the world, it said, more women are receiving treatment than men.

The report also comes amid several setbacks in efforts to develop an effective vaccine against AIDS.

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