Drop in AIDS Cases Due to Bad Data

"On the one hand, it would be a mistake to radically decrease funding for HIV"

The number of AIDS cases fell from almost 40 million cases last year to about 33.2 million cases in 2007, global health officials reported Tuesday. It sounds like dramatic progress in slowing the virus' spread, but the decline is mostly just on paper.

Previous estimates were largely inflated, and the new numbers are the result of a new methodology, which show that the AIDS pandemic is losing momentum.

'For the first time, we are seeing a decline in global AIDS deaths,' said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the World Health Organization's AIDS department. Read more