GENEVA (AP) — World health officials say there's some encouraging data on the HIV front -- the number of people infected with the virus that causes AIDS seems to be mostly stable except for Africa.
United Nations experts say the figure — about 33 million — has remained virtually unchanged for the last two years. The number comes with a margin of error of several million people.
Last year, HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 72 percent of all 2.7 million new HIV cases worldwide.
Daniel Halperin, an AIDS expert at Harvard University, says access to AIDS drugs is helping to cut the death rate. The number of people on lifesaving AIDS drugs worldwide has increased 10-fold in five years.
Some experts say it's time to focus more attention on bigger killers like pneumonia and diarrhea in developing countries that are far easier and cheaper to treat.
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