WHO evaluates progress in providing AIDS drugs to victims in developing world.

2004 OCT 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- With AIDS making disastrous new inroads in the Asian-Pacific region, World Health Organization (WHO) experts are evaluating progress toward providing anti-

AIDS drugs to three million people in developing countries worldwide by 2005The program, launched last year, aims to reduce AIDS deaths and improve quality of life for people living with the virus that causes AIDS, HIV.

In the Asian-Pacific region alone, less than 6% of the 170,000 infected people who need the drugs receive them, according to a WHO report distributed September 15, 2004, at its annual Western Pacific regional meeting in Shanghai.

AIDS prevention remains key to fighting the disease, the organization said. Treatment will not be able to keep pace unless new infection rates are cut sharply, it said.

"It is therefore crucial to invest more in prevention today if countries are not to pay much more for care tomorrow," the report said.

WHO officials said progress toward its goal of providing anti-viral drugs is getting a boost from a major drop in the price of medication to as little as US$140 a year per patient for triple-drug treatments.

But funding remains in question, with sources found for only part of the program's US$5.5 billion ...