2 mln people die of AIDS in 2008: UNAIDS

SHANGHAI, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Some two million people died of AIDS in 2008, 70 percent of whom were in sub-Saharan regions in Africa, according to a report released Tuesday here by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization.

Sixty-seven percent of the HIV carriers and 91 percent of the newly infectors with the virus under 15 years old in the world were in the sub-Saharan regions.

Only 42 percent of the HIV carriers had received treatment and 38 percent of the infected children in the low and middle income countries had access to treatment, the reports said.

A predicted 15.6 billion U.S. dollars were used in the prevention and treatment of AIDS and the expenditure was expected to rise to 25 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, according to the reports.

New HIV infections, however, had been reduced by 17 percent over the past eight years due to the HIV prevention programs worldwide, according to a press release Tuesday on the UNAIDS website.

AIDS was spreading rapidly among high-risk groups in parts of China and was threatening to become a serious epidemic, said Minister of Health Chen Zhu on Tuesday.

Sex transmission, especially among the homosexuals, mainly contributed to the newly infected AIDS patients, Chen said.

A total of 319,877 people in China had been registered HIV positive, including 102,323 AIDS patients and 49,845 deaths, as of Oct. 31, according to statistics released on a national AIDS control meeting in Shanghai.