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Over half of people with HIV taking AIDS drugs: United Nations

Click to play video: 'Ending the stigma surrounding HIV and Aids'
Ending the stigma surrounding HIV and Aids
Brian Chittock from Aids Vancouver tells us about ending the stigma surrounding HIV and Aids for World Aids Day – Dec 1, 2016

LONDON – The United Nations says that for the first time in the AIDS epidemic, more than half of all people with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus.

AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the U.N. AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries.

READ MORE: Made-in-Canada HIV/AIDS treatment embraced by everyone but Canada

Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The U.N. report was released Thursday in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend.

“When you think about the money that’s been spent on AIDS, it could have been better,” said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London.

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