Efforts to end the global AIDS pandemic by 2030 are lagging, the UN warned Tuesday, decrying rising numbers of new HIV infections among adults in many regions, with Russia especially hard-hit.

In a new report, UNAIDS cautioned that while new HIV infections had fallen dramatically in the past two decades, especially among children, the trend among adults has stalled and even risen in a number of places over the past five years.

"This situation scares me, and we need to act fast," UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe told reporters in Geneva at the launch of the report.

"If we don't, the epidemic could once again take hold with huge human and financial losses," he warned.

The HIV epidemic has been in decline over the past decade, but there are still 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

Great strides have especially been made globally towards preventing children from contracting HIV, with new infections among those under the age of 15 down 56 percent since 2010 and by 70 percent since 2000 to around 150,000 last year, the report showed.

(AFP)