The recent report published by the United Nations (UN) says that the AIDS epidemic is now evolving and some adjustments need to be made to the existing preventive programs to accommodate the changes.

The UN’s 2009 AIDS update says that there has been a reduction of 17 percent over the past eight years in the number of new HIV infections.

The Sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed a reduction of 15 percent in the HIV cases and the East Asian region saw 25 percent lesser cases.

Karen Stanecki is senior epidemiologist at the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, which co-published the report with the World Health Organization.

She has said that even though the numbers of new cases of HIV have reduced still the number of people living with HIV is the maximum now than ever before.

“The number of new infections is going down,” Stanecki said. “The number of people living with HIV remains about the same because as more and more people get on treatment, people are living longer - so the number of people living with HIV may actually go up in some cases.”