GREAT news just in time for World AIDS day on 1 December: new infections of HIV have fallen dramatically thanks to surging availability of antiretroviral drugs (ARTs), which reduce the chances of people passing on the virus.

A report published this week by UNAIDS, which coordinates the fight against HIV and AIDS, shows that new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have both fallen by a fifth since their peaks in 1997 and 2005 respectively.

“We have seen a massive scale up in access to HIV treatment, which has had a dramatic effect on lives,” says Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS. ARTs now reach almost half the 14.2 million people eligible for treatment in poor countries, with the aim of reaching them all by 2015.

In sub-Saharan Africa, new infections have fallen by 26 per cent since 1997, and in South Africa and the Caribbean they have fallen by a third. Globally, ARTs have reached an additional 1.35 million people since 2009.