Encouraging news have been reported from medical researchers to mark this year’s AIDS Day which falls today with the end of the deadly epidemic in sight.

With over 30 million deaths and 60 million infections in its trail the AIDS pandemic, according to the researchers will soon become a thing of the past.

"We have the weapons to win the war against AIDS," says Dr Richard Marlink, Executive Director of AIDS Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health in the US.It is time to take what we have learned to turn the epidemic around and end AIDS."

A statement from Harvard School of Public Health received on Wednesday said an estimated 34 million people were currently living with HIV and about 6.6 million people living with HIV who were eligible for treatment now had access.

According to the report, “positive new findings” had come from new clinical research done in multiple countries showing that treatment could be up to 96 per cent effective in preventing HIV transmission between couples.

"Now that the end of AIDS may be possible, it’s time to pause and reflect, then regroup      and redouble our efforts," says Dr Julio Frenk, Dean of Harvard School of Public Health.      We have invested so much we can't afford to slow down now."

The statement said at issue were the resources needed and the best ways to bring these weapons to all parts of the globe, especially to the high-risk groups most vulnerable to infection with HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS.

It said after years of frustration and a mounting death toll, “the new hope for ending the AIDS epidemic stems from an explosion of scientific knowledge in the past few years.

This knowledge has led to new and better prevention interventions, such as treating pregnant women and nursing mothers infected with the virus or the nursing baby, stops mother-to-child transmission of the virus.

The new initiative also protects infants and young children from HIV and treats HIV infection itself with antiretroviral drugs which dramatically reduces by 96 per cent the likelihood that the infected person will pass on the virus to a sexual partner.

It has also led to knowledge that in men, circumcision reduces the risk of becoming infected with HIV and antiretroviral drugs used by people in high-risk groups before exposure can also prevent HIV infection.

It said, however, that at the moment, several obstacles stood in the way of applying this knowledge to halt the epidemic.

UNAIDS has also developed a new investment framework to help countries reach their goals, which would avert at least 12.2 million new HIV infections and 7.4 million AIDS-related deaths between 2011 and 2020.

"Fighting AIDS is a smart investment, even in this difficult economic environment," according to UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe. "We have to look beyond the short-term and recognize the long-term benefits."

Another key to halting the epidemic is leadership, both at the national and international levels. Early in the epidemic, a strong activist movement prodded both scientists and policy makers. New combination drug treatments were developed and shown to be very effective.

“Once drugs transformed AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease, unfortunately the urgency related to AIDS seemed to decrease dramatically,” says Dr. Marlink.

A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that, in 2009, only six per cent of those questioned considered AIDS the most urgent public health problem. A similar poll in 1995 found 44 per cent considered AIDS the most urgent public health problem.

“Such findings show the public thinks the crisis is over, even though an estimated 50,000 new HIV infections occur every year in the US,” according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.”

The difference may be that AIDS today is seen as a chronic disease and the current generation has not lived with the wasting and cancers that characterized the early years of AIDS.”

The statement said in Africa, which had two-thirds of people living with HIV, strong leadership had made a difference.

About half of all funding for the AIDS response came from domestic sources and the other half from international donors, primarily through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, established 10 years ago. The statement said.

The Global Fund however, is cutting new grants for countries battling AIDS until 2014. The fate of PEPFAR, the huge international US AIDS programme, remains in question as the US Congress contemplates ways to address the deficit.

By Florence Simpson/Voice of Africa Radio/UK