HIV/AIDS in South Africa

AIDS claimed a million lives in 2016, almost half the 2005 toll that marked the peak of the deadly epidemic, said a U.N. report on July 20 proclaiming "the scales have tipped."

Not only are new HIV infections and deaths declining, but more people than ever are on life-saving treatment, according to data published ahead of an AIDS science conference opening in Paris on July 23.

New diagnoses of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are at their lowest level in five years, according to figures for 2016 presented Monday by the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (KEELPNO), which recorded 453 new cases from the start of the year until October.

Four years ago optimism was high that AIDS was in retreat, and could ultimately be eradicated. Back then the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) was boldly predicting "the end of AIDS by 2030." Nobody is feeling so optimistic now.

The number of patients infected with the HIV virus has increased in Turkey over the past year, according to Hayati Demiraslan, an academic at the Medical Faculty of Erciyes University in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri.

The number of patients infected with HIV increased from 1,400 in 2013 to 1,967 in 2014, Demiraslan said during an address to students. 

Bulgaria has registered 195 new cases of HIV-positive people in the period 1 January- 21 November 2014, according to Health Ministry data.

The newly-registered cases of people carrying the virus that causes AIDS have taken the official total number of people with HIV/AIDS in Bulgaria to 2,025, the ministry said in a statement marking the World AIDS Day on Monday.

Global AIDS-related deaths and new HIV infections have fallen by over a third in a decade, the United Nations said Wednesday as it voiced hope of wiping out the killer disease.
      
The global effort to beat the pandemic has made huge strides, though the battle is far from over with 35 million people still living with HIV worldwide, said Michel Sidibe, head of UNAIDS.