New HIV infections down by 20% in India: UN

India has been able to achieve a more than 20% decline in new HIV infections between 2000 and 2014, reversing the spread of the virus, according to a UN report that says the world is on track to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

According to the report titled "How AIDS changed everything - MDG 6: 15 years, 15 lesson of hope from the AIDS response", the world has exceeded the targets contained in the Millennium Development Goals (MGD) to halt and reverse the spread of HIV.

New HIV infections have fallen by 35% and AIDS-related deaths by 41%, while the global response to HIV has averted 30 million new infections and nearly 8 million AIDS-related deaths since 2000, when the MDGs were set said the report that was released in Addis Ababa yesterday by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

"The measure of success for the United Nations is not what we promise, but what we deliver for those who need us most. When it comes to halting and beginning to reverse the AIDS epidemic, the world has delivered," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said following the report's launch.

Ban said 15 million people on HIV treatment meant that the world was on its way to an AIDS-free generation.

It also means that nearly 75% of all pregnant women living with HIV have access to antiretroviral medicines that improve the quality of their lives and protect their children from HIV, he said.

The report noted that India "literally" changed the course of its national HIV epidemic through the use of strategic information that guided its focus to the locations and population approach.

"This placed communities at the centre of the response through the engagement of non-state actors and centrally managed policy and donor coordination," it said.

HIV treatment coverage for people living with HIV and TB has also increased and in terms of numbers of patients, the largest increases in antiretroviral therapy among people living with both HIV and TB have occurred in India, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

India accounts for more than 60% of the Asia Pacific region's people living with HIV-associated TB.

The report noted that currently nearly 85% of the antiretroviral medicines for HIV treatment come from India.

It said the Indian government had also succeeded in preserving the legislative and policy spaces that permit Indian companies that make generic medicines to consolidate their exporting capacities to other developing countries.

Currently, however, India is under pressure from several companies and governments of developed countries to dilute these provisions in free-trade agreements being negotiated with them, it said.