Twenty-five countries, many in hard-hit Africa, have at least halved new HIV infections in the past decade, with particular progress made towards protecting children from the deadly virus, the UN said yesterday.

“We are moving from despair to hope,” Michel Sidibe, the executive director of UNAIDS, told reporters in Geneva, pointing out that around half of all reductions in new HIV infections in the past two years had been among children.

“It is becoming evident that achieving zero new HIV infections in children is possible,” he said.

In its annual report on the state of the global pandemic, UNAIDS said that 25 low- and middle-income countries had managed to at least halve their rate of new HIV infections since 2001, representing a reduction of 700,000 new HIV infections.

More than half of those countries were in Africa, the region most affected by HIV, the agency said, pointing out for instance that Malawi had cut new infections by 73 per cent, while Botswana had seen a 68 per cent drop.

Globally, new HIV infections fell to 2.5 million last year from 2.6 million in 2010 and represented a 20-per cent drop from 2001, UNAIDS said.

“The pace of progress is quickening. What used to take a decade is now being achieved in 24 months,” Sidibe said.

Particular progress had been made in bringing down the number of children newly infected with HIV.

Last year, 330,000 children worldwide were infected with the virus that causes AIDS, down from 370,000 in 2010, and 43 per cent fewer than in 2003, UNAIDS said.

And in sub-Saharan Africa – a region that today is home to 90 per cent of the world’s infected youngsters – the number of children newly infected with the virus that causes AIDS dropped 24 percent between 2009 and 2011 alone, UNAIDS said.

The number of global deaths linked to AIDS has meanwhile fallen for five consecutive years, the agency said.