South Africa – the country with the largest number of infections – has shown a 41 percent reduction since 2001. At the same time, treatment in South Africa was scaled up by 75 percent over the last two years.

“We are really seeing a quickening in the pace of progress over the past two years. We have achieved in the past two years what took us before a whole decade. We have seen in the past two years a 60 percent increase in the number of people accessing life-saving treatment. Five countries in the region have achieved more than 80 percent coverage of HIV treatment. That is Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda, Swaziland and Zambia,” he said.

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, UNAIDS says China has scaled up treatment by 50 percent over the past year.

Schwartlander also said great progress has been shown regarding newborns.

“In the last two years, half of all the reductions in HIV infections have been among children. In six countries – Burundi, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Togo and Zambia – the number of children newly infected with HIV has fallen at least 40 percent in the past two years,” he said.

Countries that had infection rates greater than 25 percent between 2001 and 2011 include Bangladesh, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, Republic of Moldova and Sri Lanka.

About one-point-seven million people died of AIDS-related causes in 2011, showing a continued decline. The downward trend began in the mid-2000s with the increased availability of antiretroviral drugs in developing countries.