New York  - The unrelenting global struggle against the AIDS epidemic has made significant gains, reflected in the decline in the number of infection and AIDS-related deaths, a new study on HIV/AIDS said Tuesday.

In countries with large numbers of people infected with the AIDS virus, such as Rwanda and Zimbabwe, changes in sexual behaviour resulted in the decline of the number of newly infected people, the UN-AIDS said in the 2008 report on the global AIDS epidemic.

The report was launched in advance of the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico from August 3-8.

Young people with multiple sexual partners have used condoms more often or delayed the experience of sexual intercourse, which are encouraging signs in some African nations where the epidemic has been prevalent for decades. Those signs were seen in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia.

The report said there has been a marked decline in sexual intercourse among youths under 15 in Cameroon, from 35 per cent to 14 per cent from 2005 to 2007.

UN-AIDS said a total of 105 countries have set national goals of providing HIV prevention, treatment, care and support to their populations by 2010.

The statistics provided by the report, which was the result of surveys provided by more than 140 countries participating, showed a decline in new HIV infections from 3 million a year in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2007.

Currently, there are an estimated 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. There were 2.7 million newly infected people and 2 million AIDS-related deaths in 2007.

"Gains in saving lives by preventing new infections and providing treatment to people living with HIV must be sustained over the long- term," said Doctor Peter Piot, the executive director of UN-AIDS. "Short-term gains should serve as a platform for reinvigorating the combination of HIV prevention and treatment efforts and not spur complacency." (dpa)