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GENEVA -- Speaker after speaker at the 12th World AIDS Conference said that sex education, needle exchanges and other prevention programs can save millions of people from AIDS. The conference ended Friday with little of the euphoria of the last AIDS meeting, in Vancouver, British Columbia. There, scientists reported that combinations of new drugs, called protease inhibitors, had allowed many people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, to leave their deathbeds, even to return to work. Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, of Durban, South Africa said that AIDS affects 40 percent of the children he treats in a large black hospital there. Yet, Coovadia, who is chairman of the next World AIDS Conference in 2000 in Durban, said that he had never used any anti- HIV drugs. His hospital cannot afford them

AIDS virus infections worldwide have risen 10 percent over the past year, showing a disturbing lack of progress in prevention, the U.N. AIDS Program in Geneva said in a report issued Monday. The document, released as part of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, also reported that the spread is largest among young people and more women are becoming infected. Overall, the number of people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, rose by 5.8 million, to 33.4 million from 27.6 million

A series of reports about new problems with anti-AIDS drugs and setbacks in vaccine trials left many participants thinking that their best hope against the epidemic is the strategy they have had since it began -- prevention. The mood was a sharp contrast to the euphoria at the last AIDS meeting, in Vancouver, British Columbia, two years ago. There, scientists reported that combinations of new drugs, called protease inhibitors, had allowed many people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, to leave their deathbeds, even to return to work. As Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, of Durban, South Africa, explained it, AIDS affects 40% of the children he treats in a large black hospital there. Yet, Coovadia, who is chairman of the next World AIDS Conference in 2000 in Durban, said that he had never used any anti-HIV drugs. His hospital cannot afford them, he said

A series of reports about new problems with anti-AIDS drugs and setbacks in vaccine trials left many participants thinking that their best hope against the epidemic is the strategy they have had since it began - prevention. The mood was a sharp contrast to the euphoria at the last AIDS meeting, in Vancouver, B.C., two years ago. There, scientists reported that combinations of new drugs, called protease inhibitors, had allowed many people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, to leave their deathbeds, even to return to work. As Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, of Durban, South Africa, explained it, AIDS affects 40 percent of the children he treats in a large hospital there. Yet, Coovadia, who is chairman of the next World AIDS Conference in 2000 in Durban, said that he had never used any anti-HIV drugs. His hospital cannot afford them, he said

The mood was a sharp contrast to the euphoria at the last AIDS meeting, in Vancouver, British Columbia, two years ago. There, scientists reported that combinations of new drugs, called protease inhibitors, had let many people infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, leave their deathbeds and even return to work. As Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, of Durban, South Africa, explained it, AIDS affects 40 percent of the children he treats in a large black hospital there. Yet, Coovadia, chairman of the next World AIDS Conference in 2000 in Durban, said he'd never used any anti-HIV drugs. His hospital can't afford them, he said. The meeting's theme was 'bridging the gap' between what's available to HIV-infected people in developed and developing countries, where, said Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations AIDS program, the virus is causing 'a runaway epidemic.'

The mood was a sharp contrast to the euphoria at the last AIDS meeting, in Vancouver two years ago. There, scientists reported that combinations of new drugs, called protease inhibitors, had allowed many people infected with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, to leave their deathbeds, even to return to work. As Dr. Hoosen Coovadia, of Durban, South Africa, explained it, AIDS affects 40 percent of the children he treats in a large black hospital there. Yet, Dr. Coovadia, who is chairman of the next World AIDS Conference in 2000 in Durban, said he had never used any anti-H.I.V. drugs. His hospital cannot afford them, he said. Reports like these lead inexorably to the conclusion that the best hope for easing the epidemic is still prevention, speakers said. Yet ''over 100 times more money is being spent on therapeutics now than on the development of prevention technologies,'' said Dr. Catherine Han kins, an epidemiologist at Montreal General Hospital in Canada. Among them are chemicals that could be inserted into the vagina before sexual intercourse to kill H.I.V. Dr. Hankins left the meeting saying she did not feel ''terribly optimistic.''

Troubling questions like these have filled medical history when promising new therapies have gone sour. The questions come up now in a dramatic way in AIDS because of a recently recognized constellation of findings known as the lipodystrophy syndrome. It produces a different pattern from the wasting syndrome long known as a part of AIDS. Several published reports have linked the syndrome to the drug cocktails that contain one of the powerful protease inhibitor drugs that were introduced in the last two and a half years. Many discussions at the 12th World AIDS Conference that ended here last week focused on the syndrome as experts from several countries reported new cases. Dr. David A. Cooper of Sydney, Australia, an international leader in AIDS research, and Dr. Andrew Carr expanded on their earlier published findings that 74 out of 116 or about 64 percent of patients taking protease inhibitors developed the syndrome, compared to 1 out of 132 who did not

Dr. (Peter) Piot's team quickly showed that the Zairian patients had developed AIDS through heterosexual sex -- a finding that was initially met with disbelief by medical experts. But Dr. Piot (pronouced PEA-ott) knew his work was important. The leader, whom Dr. Piot declined to name, contended that his country's blood supply was safe. But Dr. Piot, fresh from a visit to a blood bank, knew better because the bank had no laboratory kits to screen blood before transfusions. The skeptical leader called the blood bank and learned that the blood was in fact dangerous. He summoned his health minister and ordered him to adopt the United Nations AIDS Program's recommendations. That country's program now works well, Dr. Piot said. ''Go to Zaire tonight,'' Dr. Piot was told. Earlier, the same Belgian officials had opposed sending a team to investigate the epidemic in Yambuku, Zaire, from which Dr. Piot's team in Antwerp had isolated the new virus. Suddenly, Dr. Piot's presence in Zaire was needed because American, French and South African scientists were there and the Belgians did not want to be embarrassed by not being represented

In certain areas of Africa, one in four adults is infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and around the world the disease now rivals the greatest epidemics of history, according to a United Nations report issued recently. One is that more women of childbearing age are HIV-infected in Africa than elsewhere. A second is that African women have more children on average than those on other continents. Thus, one infected woman may pass the virus onto a higher average number of children. A third reason is that nearly all children in Africa are breast-fed. But breast-feeding is thought to account for between a third and a half of all HIV transmission from mother to child

AIDS virus infections worldwide have risen 10 percent over the past year, showing a disturbing lack of progress in prevention, the United Nations AIDS Program in Geneva said in a report issued yesterday. The document, released as a prelude to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, also reported that the spread is largest among young people and more women are becoming infected. Overall, the number of people infected with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, rose by 5.8 million, to 33.4 million from 27.6 million. All but 5 percent of the infections occurred in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Half of the new infections -- nearly 3 million -- were among those 15 to 24 years old, the age when most people become sexually active. Because it is also a time when they are at their peak productive and reproductive years, AIDS is causing economic devastation in many countries. The number of children orphaned by AIDS is also rising significantly. ''This is gloomy news,'' said Dr. Peter Piot, the head of the United Nations AIDS Program