GENEVA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- UNAIDS, the main UN body to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, warned on Thursday that AIDS-related deaths are not falling fast enough and flat resources are threatening success to reach the 2020 HIV targets as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In its latest report, Miles to Go -- Closing Gaps, Breaking Barriers, Righting Injustices, UNAIDS warned that the global response to HIV is at a precarious point and that the pace of progress is not matching global ambition.

The report underlines that global new HIV infections have declined by just 18 percent in the past seven years, from 2.2 million in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2017. Although this is nearly half the number of new infections compared to the peak in 1996 (3.4 million), the decline is not quick enough to reach the target of fewer than 500,000 by 2020.

The reduction in new HIV infections has been strongest in the region most affected by HIV, which is eastern and southern Africa, where new HIV infections have been reduced by 30 percent since 2010.

However, new HIV infections are rising in around 50 countries. In eastern Europe and central Asia, the annual number of new HIV infections has doubled, and new HIV infections have increased by more than a quarter in the Middle East and North Africa over the past 20 years.

The report also shows that key populations account for almost half of all new HIV infections worldwide.

"Sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men, prisoners, migrants, refugees and transgender people are more affected by HIV but are still being left out from HIV programs," UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said.

For example, half of all sex workers in eSwatini, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe are living with HIV. The risk of acquiring HIV is 13 times higher for female sex workers, 27 times higher among men who have sex with men, 23 times higher among people who inject drugs and 12 times higher for transgender women.

Meanwhile, although 80 percent of pregnant women living with HIV had access to antiretroviral medicines to prevent transmission of HIV to their child in 2017, an unacceptable 180,000 children acquired HIV during birth or breastfeeding, which is far away from the target of fewer than 40,000 by the end of 2018.

"We are sounding the alarm" as "entire regions are falling behind," Sidibe said. "It is the responsibility of political leaders, national governments and the international community to make sufficient financial investments and establish the legal and policy environments needed to bring the work of innovators to the global scale. Doing so will create the momentum needed to reach the targets by 2020."