Good news in AIDS battle

The AIDS pandemic is losing momentum, according to international health officials. The AIDS battle is far from over, but the new data are encouraging.

Deaths caused by the infectious disease and the number of new cases worldwide, while still high, are both declining. Information from the hardest-hit areas suggests that AIDS prevention is beginning to succeed, and deaths from AIDS have declined in part because of the greater access to anti-retroviral drugs in the world"s poorest places.

The latest annual report from the United Nations AIDS office has additional good news. There are probably significantly fewer people around the world infected by AIDS today than previously thought. Last year the mid-point estimate for AIDS cases put the number at 39.5 million, with a range of 34.7 to 47.1 million. The latest U.N. figures put the total today at 33.2 million, with a range of 30.6 to 36.1 million. The lower numbers result from a new methodology, which, according to the AIDS office, does a better job of sampling affected populations and extrapolating from the samples. The reduced range of incidence indicates greater confidence in the methodology now being applied.

The principal breakthrough in getting a better understanding of the extent of the AIDS epidemic came in India, where the new methods were applied earlier this year, resulting in a dramatic downward revision in AIDS cases. Last year India reported 5.7 million cases, with a range of 3.4 to 9.4 million, indicating great uncertainty. This year, using new surveillance methods covering a broader population and a national health survey, India"s AIDS experts concluded that the likely figure should be 2.5 million. The new methods not only resulted in a lower estimate, they also will help Indian officials do a better job of targeting AIDS resources to combat the epidemic.

U.N. officials had been accused of exaggerating the extent of the worldwide epidemic in order to obtain more resources for the AIDS battle. Some experts told The Associated Press last week they think the numbers are still too high and that they expect further downward revisions.

But there is still no getting around the fact that tens of millions of people will have compromised health and shorter lives as a result of AIDS, or the fact that new cases continue to occur, although with less frequency.

As modern medicine prolongs the useful lives of AIDS victims, the number of infected persons worldwide will probably continue to rise in the near future. This is no time to let up on the anti-AIDS public health efforts that appear, at last, to be having a positive effect.