GENEVA, July 16. /TASS/. About 1.7 mln new HIV infections were recorded globally in 2018, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) said in a report published in Geneva on Tuesday.

"The annual number of new HIV infections globally continued to decline gradually in 2018," the report reads. "The annual number of new infections (all ages) since 2010 has declined from 2.1 million… to 1.7 million… in 2018, a 16% reduction that leaves the world far off the 2020 target of fewer than 500,000 new infections," UNAIDS added.

According to the report, 37.9 mln people around the world live with HIV.

"The annual number of deaths from AIDS-related illness among people living with HIV (all ages) globally has fallen from a peak of 1.7 million… in 2004 to 770,000… in 2018," the report says, adding that "since 2010, AIDS-related mortality has declined by 33%." "Reaching the 2020 milestone of fewer than 500,000 deaths will require further declines of about 135,000 per year," UNAIDS pointed out.

"There have been impressive gains in eastern and southern Africa, home to 54% of the world’s people living with HIV. AIDS-related mortality in the region declined by 44% from 2010 to 2018, and annual new HIV infections declined by 28% during the same period," the document noted. "By contrast, AIDS-related deaths in the eastern Europe and central Asia and Middle East and North Africa regions have risen by 5% and 9%, respectively, over the eight-year period, and the annual number of HIV infections has increased in three regions: eastern Europe and central Asia (29% increase), Middle East and North Africa (10% increase) and Latin America (7% increase)," UNAIDS said.

According to UNAIDS, in 2018, "investment in the HIV responses of low-and middle-income countries decreased by $900 million (to $19 billion)."

"If the world is to be on track to end AIDS by 2030, there must be adequate and predictable financing for development," said Gunilla Carlsson, the UNAIDS Executive Director, a.i.