UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) — The United Nations (UN) on Tuesday reported that a simplified approach to ensuring access to HIV treatment for everyone who needs it could prevent 10 million deaths by 2025 and 1 million new infections annually.

The so-called Treatment 2.0, says the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), could lower the cost of treatment, simplify treatment regimens, ease the burden on health systems, and improve the quality of life for people living with HIV and their families.

“We can bring down costs so investments can reach more people,” Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director, said in Geneva on Tuesday, as the agency unveiled its report. “This means doing things better – knowing what to do, channeling resources in the right direction and not wasting them, bringing down prices and containing costs. We must do more with less.”

The UN’s report highlights key actions to be taken across five key areas: the creation for a better pill hat is less toxic and for a simple diagnostic tool to monitor treatment; access to treatment for those in need, which could reduce the number of new HIV infections by one third annually; slashing the cost of antiretroviral treatment, especially for hospitalization and monitoring treatment, which can cost twice as much as drugs; the need to improve voluntary HIV testing and counseling, which could boost the efficacy of treatment and increase life expectancy; and the mobilization and involvement of communities in managing treatment programs and access.

“Not only could Treatment 2.0 save lives, it has the potential to give us a significant prevention dividend,” said Sidibé.

“The AIDS response needs a stimulus package now,” Sidibé emphasized. “Donors must not turn back on investments at a time when the AIDS response is showing results,” h said as in eight countries – Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – significant HIV prevalence declines have been accompanied by positive changes in sexual behavior among young people.

The agency recommends that nations invest between 0.5 and 3 per cent of government revenue into their AIDS response programs, but warned that for the majority of countries severely affected by the epidemic, national investments, even at optimal levels, are insufficient.

The agency estimates that there were 33.4 million people living with HIV worldwide at the end of 2008, as well as nearly 2.7 million new infections and 2 million AIDS-related deaths. In addition, only one third of the world’s 15 million people in need of HIV treatment are accessing life-saving medicines.

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