UN labels Aids 'unprecendented catastrophe'

The UN is to pronounce HIV/Aids an "unprecendented human catastrophe" following a UN conference on the epidemic this week, officials said today .

The declaration would point to the more than 25 million deaths caused by Aids in the past 25 years. A draft document was being negotiated by governments and civil society groups attending the three-day conference, which will end Friday with the joint declaration.

While civil society groups said the UN has not done enough for the most vulnerable groups in the world, the draft did include their demands on human rights, funding and preventive measures.

Many of the preventive measures are similar to a declaration issued in 2001, when the UN General Assembly drew up its first five- year global plan to fight HIV/Aids.

This week's conference was intended to review progress made in the global fight against the epidemic since that time.

The draft said the world is facing an "unprecedented human catastrophe and that a quarter of a century into the pandemic, Aids has inflicted immense suffering on countries and communities around the world."

Aids has infected 65 million people, 25 million of whom have died. Of the 40 million people that have lived with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), more than 95 per cent are in developing countries.

The UN said 4.1 million people became infected and 2.8 million died in 2005 of Aids. The virus kills an estimated 8.500 people each day and infects 13,500 others.

Each year, a total of 700,000 children become infected.