DAKAR, 1 December (IRIN) - Friday is annual World AIDS Day but despite a boom in publicity campaigns such as this one, the disease continues to spread in Africa because basic details about the illness are not reaching the right people, UNAIDS has warned.

According to a report released last week by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), 4.3 million new cases of HIV were registered in 2006 and 65 percent of them were in Africa. Some three million people met an early death because of HIV/AIDS in 2006, the report said.

In sub-Saharan Africa, there are 24.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, five million more than in 2004.

A glimmer of hope comes from West Africa, where except for Mali the prevalence shows signs of stabilising, and in some cases even slowing.

Southern Africa remains the most affected region, but isolated Zimbabwe has nonetheless registered a drop in prevalence rates amongst pregnant women, the report said.

Prevention is the key, according to UNAIDS.

"New data suggests that where HIV prevention programmes have not been sustained and/or adapted as epidemics have changed - infection rates are staying the same or going up," UNAIDS said in a statement at the report's release.

The report singled out Uganda as an example both of possibilities and pitfalls. Often praised for reducing its infection rate from 20 to six percent in ten years, thanks to a voluntary prevention policy, Uganda is now showing a resurgence in HIV/AIDS infections.

"This is worrying - as we know increased HIV prevention programmes in these countries have shown progress in the past - Uganda being a prime example," said Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS. "This means that countries are not moving at the same speed as their epidemics."

According to the UNAIDS report, "People at highest risk - youths, women and girls, men who have sex with men, sex workers and their clients, injecting drug users and ethnic and cultural minorities - are not adequately reached through HIV prevention and treatment strategies because not enough is known about their particular situation."

The report did point towards healthier sexual behaviour among youths, which it said contributed to a decline in prevalence rates in youths between 2000 and 2005, especially in Rwanda, Burundi and urban areas in Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire.

But Piot said that is not enough. "Action must not only be increased dramatically, but must also be strategic, focused and sustainable to ensure that the money reaches those who need it most," he said.

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