Aumporn Thongbeang, 24, and her baby girl, Nondern, sit on a mat outside their room and wait for death to catch up with them.

"The epidemic has not been overcome anywhere. Virtually every country in the world has seen new infections in 1998, and the epidemic is frankly out of control in many places," UNAIDS said in its annual update of the epidemic.

Nearly 6 million new AIDS cases were reported this year, with the developing world the epicenter of the epidemic. More than 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are estimated to have the virus, 6.7 million people in South and Southeast Asia and 1.4 million people in Latin America.