UNITED NATIONS, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The global fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic needs to be substantially enhanced and better coordinated as new infections continue increasing in certain areas despite a slowdown in the incidence rate worldwide, the United Nations said in a report released Tuesday.

    "New data shows that the AIDS epidemic is slowing down globally," said UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot when launching a global AIDS report at the UN headquarters in New York.

    "We've seen important progress made by countries over the past five years that increased funding, with a decrease in the number of new infections, particularly among young people," Piot said.

    But he warned that huge challenges remained. "We are at the crossroads in this epidemic," he said.

    In the report, UNAIDS said that "there are still significant weakness in the response to HIV."

    "Despite some notable achievements, the response to the AIDS epidemic to date has been nowhere near adequate," said the report prepared by UNAIDS, the UN agency that coordinates the global campaign against the pandemic.

    The study came out on the eve of a high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on the deadly disease. A dozen heads of state, more than 100 cabinet ministers and about 1,000 representatives of civil society and the private sector are expected to gather in New York from Wednesday to Friday to discuss its findings.

    "A quarter century into the epidemic, the global AIDS response stands at a crossroads. The response must become substantially stronger, more strategic and better coordinated if the world is toachieve the 2010 Declaration of Commitment targets," the report said.

    It warned that the countries most affected by HIV/AIDS will fail to achieve millenniun development goals to reduce poverty, hunger and childhood mortality, and countries whose development isalready flagging because of HIV/AIDs will continue to weaken, potentailly threatening social stability and national security, "if the response does not increase significantly."

    The report, based on data submitted by 126 countries, showed that an estimated 33.4 million to 46 million people were living with AIDS at the end of 2005. An estimated 3.2 million to 6.2 million became newly infected and between 2.2 million and 3.3 million died of AIDS.

    According to the report, the proportion of people infected with HIV, or the prevalence rate, is believed to have peaked in the late 1990s and to have stabilized globally, even though several countries have been showing increases. But "the world's failure tomake proven prevention methods available to those who need them represents a remarkable missed opportunity."

    Some 25 years after the epidemic was first recognized, most people at risk of HIV infection have yet to be reached with HIV prevention methods, "as many policy-makers refrain from implementing approaches that have been shown to work," the report said.

    Globally, treatment alone would avert 9 million new HIV infections by the end of 2020, whereas simultaneous treatment and prevention would head off an estimated 29 million new HIV infections in the same time, it noted.

    Courageous political leadership and strong prevention efforts have been successful in reversing the pandemic in Brazil, Thailandand Uganda and are now reducing the HIV prevalence rate in Cambodia, Zimbabwe, parts of Burkina Faso, Haiti, Kenya and Tanzania, the report said.

    Among the geographical regions, Sub-Saharan Africa is still theworst affected, with an HIV prevalence rate of 6.1 percent. Of that figure, Botswana's rate is estimated at 24.1, Lesotho's 23.2 percent and South Africa's 18.8 percent, compared to 0.9 in Senegal. Among young people, the female to male rate of infection is 3:1, and the report called for several empowering measures for young women and girls, including an older minimum age for marriage.     

    The Caribbean, the world's second most affected region, has a rate of 1.6 percent, with Haiti coming in at about 3.8 percent. Cuba's rate, "an anomaly in the region," is 0.1 percent, with mother-to-child transmission found in only 100 babies. Other regions' rates range from 0.3 percent in Oceania to 0.8 percent inEastern Europe and Central Asia. Enditem