A million people in poor countries are receiving life-saving AIDS drugs but the World Health Organisation said today it is unlikely to reach its goal of getting three times that number on treatment by the end of 2005.
Dr Jim Yong Kim, director of the WHO's HIV/AIDS department, admitted the "3 by 5" target was ambitious. The 300,000 additional patients worldwide getting antiretroviral therapy every six months is not enough to meet it.
Felicity Daly, ActionAid's HIV/AIDS policy officer
"It is much slower than we thought," he admitted. "Three by the end of 2005 looks very unlikely." Dr Kim could not say when the 3 million mark would be reached.
The WHO and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) had hoped to provide treatment to 1.6 million of the 6.5 million adults and children in poor countries who need it by June 2005 but the real acceleration in numbers they had hoped for did not materialise.
Instead they saw breadth - meaning more countries joining the programme and providing access to AIDS drugs.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the region worst affected by HIV/AIDS, about half a million people are receiving treatment - a three-fold increase in the last year.
Asia has seen numbers rise from 55,000 to 155,000 since June 2004, while in eastern Europe and central Asia people on treatment have nearly doubled in a year to 20,000, according to an update report on "3 by 5".
In Latin America and the Caribbean, about two out of three people, or 290,000, in need of treatment receive it. But in north Africa and the Middle East coverage is only five per cent.
The pressure group ActionAid blamed national governments for the shortfall in reaching the "3 by 5" target. "This news is an indictment of leaders in rich and poor countries, who have failed to fully back this vital initiative," said Felicity Daly, ActionAid's HIV/AIDS policy officer, in a statement. It singled out India, Nigeria and South Africa, which account for 41 per cent of the worldwide unmet treatment needs, for a lack of commitment in scaling up access.
"A lack of urgency is condemning hundreds of thousands to early deaths," Ms Daly added.