'End of AIDS' still possible by 2030: UN

"The end of AIDS" is still possible by 2030, the United Nations insisted Thursday, but cautioned that the world's deadliest pandemic could only be halted if leaders grasped the opportunity.

"AIDS can be ended" as a public health threat, the UNAIDS agency said, as it outlined a roadmap of investment, evidence-based prevention and treatment, empowering civil society and tackling the inequalities holding back progress.

UNAIDS said ending the pandemic was, above all, a political and financial choice.

"We are not yet on the path that ends AIDS," the agency's executive director Winnie Byanyima said, but "we can choose to get on that path".

The UN first set out in 2015 the target of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Byanyima said the greatest progress on HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- was being made in the countries and regions that have invested strongly.

She cited eastern and southern Africa, where new HIV infections have dropped by 57 percent since 2010.

Botswana, Eswatini, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have already achieved what are called the 95-95-95 targets.

This means that 95 percent of those living with HIV know their status; 95 percent of those who know they have HIV are on life-saving anti-retroviral treatment; and 95 percent of people on treatment to achieve viral suppression -- and therefore highly unlikely to infect others.

At least 16 other countries are close to achieving the target.

They include eight in sub-Saharan Africa -- the region where 65 percent of HIV-positive people live -- and Denmark, Kuwait and Thailand.

In a report, UNAIDS said that two decades ago the AIDS pandemic seemed unstoppable, with more than 2.5 million people acquiring HIV each year and...