WASHINGTON (AP) -- A push to get more AIDS treatment to the
world's poorest, hardest-hit countries is paying off as deaths
inch down -- and new infections are dropping a bit, too, the
United Nations reported Wednesday. "I personally believe it is a
new era, new era for treatment, new era for prevention," said
Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, the Joint United
Nations Program on HIV and AIDS. Some 34.2 million people
worldwide were living with the AIDS virus at the end last year,
a slight rise from the previous year as better treatment helps
patients live longer. Most of them live in low- and middle-
income countries, where a record 8 million people received life-
saving drugs last year, the report found. That's up from 6.6
million in 2010, and puts the world on track to meet a U.N. goal
of having 15 million people in those hard-hit regions on
treatment by 2015. The report comes days before the world's
largest AIDS conference opens in the nation's capital with the
goal of finally "turning the tide" on