In its latest report released on Tuesday, UNAIDS, the joint UN and World Health Organization (WHO) programme, revealed that the percentage of people living with the virus has levelled off and the number of new infections has fallen.

UNAIDS estimated more than 33 million people still have HIV in 2007, 16 per cent less than the estimated 39.5 million in 2006.

Still, AIDS remains a worrying disease as around 2.5 million new people will have been infected by the end of 2007, and 2.1 million will have died of AIDS.

There are 33.2 million people living with HIV worldwide in 2007, UNAIDS said. That's 16 percent fewer than the 39.5 million they estimated last year. About 6,800 people become infected each day, the report found.

The current estimate of 33.2 million people living with HIV replaces the 2006 estimate of 39.5 million. Applying the improved methodology retrospectively to the 2006 data, the 2007 report revises that figure, now estimating that in 2006 there were 32.7 million people living with HIV. The single biggest reason for the reduction in global HIV prevalence figures in the past year was the recent revision of estimates in India after an intensive reassessment of the epidemic in that country. The revised estimates for India, combined with important revisions of estimates in five sub-Saharan African countries (Angola, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe) account for 70% of the reduction in HIV prevalence as compared to 2006 estimates.

Sub-Saharan Africa remained most severely affected with an estimated 1.7 million new infections in 2007. Two-thirds of people living with HIV, an estimated 22.5 million people, were found in this region. UNAIDS said since 2001, the number of people living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia had increased by more than 150 per cent from 630,000 to 1.6 million in 2007.

"Unquestionably, we are beginning to see a return on investment. New HIV infections and mortality are declining and the prevalence of HIV levelling. But with more than 6,800 new infections and over 5,700 deaths each day due to AIDS, we must expand our efforts in order to significantly reduce the impact of AIDS worldwide." said UNAIDS Executive Director Dr Peter Piot.

The agency believed the decline in AIDS cases, seen in the last two years, was due in part to the success of HIV programmes.