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Anti-HIV drugs reached 1.2 million more people last year, the U.N. announced on Monday at the world AIDS forum, as the former U.S. President, Bill Clinton, defended Barack Obama's funding to fight the disease.

The increase meant that 5.2 million people had access to drugs to repress HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, said the U.N.'s World Health Organisation as thousands of delegates met at the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna.

“This is the largest increase in people accessing treatment in a single year. It is an extremely encouraging development,” said WHO's assistant Director-General Hiroki Nakatani.

Since 2003 the number of people on anti-HIV drugs has risen 12-fold, said the U.N. health agency.

But experts say despite the surge, only roughly half of the world's poor, badly infected people have access to the drugs.

The six-day conference of scientists, policymakers and grassroots workers opened on Sunday in Vienna to rowdy protests from activists accusing Mr. Obama of reneging on a campaign pledge to spend some $50 billion on AIDS by 2013. Some of several hundred protestors chanted “Obama lies — people die,” as data pointed to a slump in AIDS funding.

In a keynote speech on Monday, Mr. Clinton defended Mr. Obama, laying the blame for financial belt-tightening at the door of the U.S. Congress. “You have two options here, you can demonstrate and call the President names or we can go get some more votes in Congress to get some more money,” said Mr. Clinton. “There is no way the White House will veto an increase in funding for AIDS.”

At Sunday's opening ceremonies, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned in a video message that the “significant progress” in the 29-year war on AIDS could be reversed if countries retreated in their funding efforts.

Veteran campaigners also demanded political leaders fund AIDS with the same speed and generosity as they refloated the banking sector in 2008 and shored up the Greek economy earlier this year.

From 2002 to 2008 donations from rich economies for poor countries rose from $1.2 billion to $7.7 billion, but fell back last year to $7.6 billion, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS. — AFP