Scales tip in AIDS battle as treatment rises, deaths decline

For 1st time, over half of people with HIV taking AIDS drugs

LONDON — The United Nations says that for the first time in the AIDS epidemic, more than half of all people with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus.

AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the U.N. AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries.

Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The U.N. report was released Thursday in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend.

“When you think about the money that’s been spent on AIDS, it could have been better,” said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London.