Since 2001, New HIV Infections Plummeted 25%

Good news in the fight against AIDS: The annual rate of new HIV infections dropped by almost a quarter between 2001 and 2009, AIDS-related deaths have fallen, and the world has seen “unprecedented advances” in prevention and treatment accessibility, the UN AIDS agency says. Still, the unevenly-spread advancements are highly "fragile," and global targets haven’t been reached. At the end of last year, more than 34 million were living with HIV; some 2.6 million were infected in 2009, the AP reports.

And while, at the end of 2010, some 6.6 million sufferers in low- and middle-income countries were getting antiretroviral treatment, another 9 million who qualified for the treatment weren’t receiving it. In the report, Bill Clinton wrote that "more than 7,000 people, including 1,000 children, are newly infected with the virus every day and someone dies an AIDS-related death every 20 seconds. People in rich countries don't die from AIDS any more, but those in poor countries still do—and that's just not acceptable." Click through for more on the UN AIDS report, which notes that an estimated 20% of the 15.9 million people who inject drugs worldwide are living with HIV. (More United Nations stories.)