LONDON (AP) — For the first time in the global AIDS epidemic that has spanned four decades and killed 35 million people, more than half of all those infected with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday. 
 
 AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the U.N. AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries. 
 
 Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The U.N. report was released in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend. 
 
 "When you think about the money that's been spent on AIDS, it could have been better," said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London. 
 
 She said more resources might have gone to strengthening health systems in poor countries. 
 
 "The real test will come in five to 10 years once the funding goes down," Harman said, warning that countries might not be able to sustain the U.N.-funded AIDS programs on their own. 
 
 The Trump administration has proposed a 31 percent cut in contributions to the U.N. starting in October. 
 
 According to the report , about 19.5 million people with HIV were taking AIDS drugs in 2016, compared to 17.1 million the previous year. 
 
 UNAIDS also said there were about 36.7 million people with HIV in 2016, up slightly from 36.1 million the year before. 
 
 In the report's introduction, Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS' executive director, said more and more countries are starting treatment as early as possible, in line with scientific findings that the approach keeps people healthy and helps prevent new infections. Studies show that people whose virus is under control are far less likely to pass it on to an uninfected sex partner. 
 
 "Our quest to end AIDS has only just begun," he wrote. 
 
 The report notes that about three-quarters of pregnant women with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, now have access to medicines to prevent them from passing it to their babies. It also said five hard-hit African countries now provide lifelong AIDS drugs to 95 percent of pregnant and breast-feeding women with the virus. 
 
 "For more than 35 years, the world has grappled with an AIDS epidemic that has claimed an estimated 35 million lives," the report said. "Today, the United Nations General Assembly has a shared vision to consign AIDS to the history books." The death toll from AIDS has dropped dramatically in recent years as the wide availability of affordable, life-saving drugs has made the illness a manageable disease. 
 
 But Harman said that "Ending AIDS" — the report's title — was unrealistic. 
 
 "I can see why they do it, because it's bold and no one would ever disagree with the idea of ending AIDS, but I think we should be pragmatic," she said. "I don't think we will ever eliminate AIDS so it's possible this will give people the wrong idea." ||||| About 2880 candles are seen lit during a World AIDS Day event in Jakarta December 1, 2009. 
 
 LONDON The global rate of HIV infection and the number of AIDS-related deaths have been dramatically reduced, thanks to expanding access to treatment, the United Nations said in a report issued on Monday. 
 
 In its annual update on HIV, which it said now infects around 35.3 million people worldwide, UNAIDS said deaths from AIDS and HIV infection rates were falling, while the number of people getting treatment is going up. 
 
 AIDS-related deaths in 2012 fell to 1.6 million, down from 1.7 million in 2011 and a peak of 2.3 million in 2005. And the number of people newly infected with the disease dropped to 2.3 million in 2012 down from 2.5 million in 2011. 
 
 The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS can be transmitted via blood, breast milk and by semen during sex, but can be kept in check with cocktails of drugs known as antiretroviral treatment or therapy. 
 
 By the end of 2012, some 9.7 million people in poorer and middle-income countries had access to such AIDS drugs, an increase of nearly 20 percent in a year. 
 
 Since 2001, the U.N. report said, there has been a 52 percent drop in annual new HIV infections among children and a 33 percent reduction in newly infected adults and children combined. 
 
 In 2011, UN member states agreed to a target of getting HIV treatment to 15 million people by 2015. As countries scaled up treatment coverage and as evidence showed how treating HIV early also reduces its spread, the World Health Organization set new guidelines this year, expanding the number of people needing treatment by more than 10 million. 
 
 Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS' executive director, said the international community should aim to surpass the 2015 goal. 
 
 "Not only can we meet the 2015 target of 15 million people on HIV treatment, we must also go beyond and have the vision and commitment to ensure no one is left behind," he said in a statement with Monday's report. 
 
 The UNAIDS report found that despite a flattening in donor funding for HIV, which has remained near 2008 levels, individual countries' domestic spending on the epidemic has increased, accounting for 53 percent of global HIV resources in 2012. 
 
 Total funding for the global fight against HIV and AIDS in 2012 was $18.9 billion, about $3 billion to $5 billion short of the estimated $22 billion to $24 billion needed annually by 2015. 
 
 (Editing by Stacey Joyce)
– For the first time in the global AIDS epidemic that has spanned four decades and killed 35 million people, more than half of all those infected with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus, the UN said Thursday. AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the UN AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries. According to the report, about 19.5 million people with HIV were taking AIDS drugs in 2016, per the AP. About 36.7 million people had HIV last year, up slightly from 36.1 million in 2015, meaning 53% were taking drugs. AIDS deaths, meanwhile, fell to 1 million from the high of 1.9 million in 2005, reports the BBC. Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The UN report was released in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend. "When you think about the money that's been spent on AIDS, it could have been better," said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London. "The real test will come in five to 10 years once the funding goes down," Harman said, warning that countries might not be able to sustain the UN-funded AIDS programs on their own. The Trump administration has proposed a 31% cut in contributions to the UN starting in October.