Some 510 AIDS cases reported in morocco up to last june

Some 510 AIDS cases had been reported in Morocco up to last June, while the number of HIV-infected people is estimated between 5,000 and 6,000.

The figures were made public by the national program of struggle against sexually transmissible diseases (STD-AIDS) during a press conference in Rabat.

Officials from the STD-AIDS program said the number of people infected with STDs stands at 100,821 against 189,021 in 1997.

The officials attributed the alarming figures partly to the attitude of physicians who do not alert their patients appropriately and to self-medication, which is still commonplace in Morocco.

The Public Health Department says that the real number of new STD cases stands at 600,000 per year.

The health department devised a strategy to struggle against STDs, revolving around the promotion of medical treatment and the involvement of social sectors in prevention.

At the world level, AIDS infections have risen 10 percent in the last year, showing a disturbing lack of progress in prevention nearly 20 years into the epidemic, the U.N. AIDS Program in Geneva said in a report.

The document, made public ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, also reported that the spread was largest among young people and that more women were becoming infected.

Every minute of the year, 11 men, women and children contracted HIV, the deadly virus that causes AIDS, bringing the worldwide total to 33.4 million people, up from 27.6 million a year ago.