Three million people died from AIDS last year, and almost 5 million became infected with HIV — more than in any previous year, according to a new United Nations report issued Tuesday.

Worldwide, the number of people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, stands at about 38 million despite efforts to control it, the report said.

The “most frightening” numbers come from Eastern Europe and Asia, said UNAIDS chief Dr. Peter Piot. That region accounts for one in four new infections, largely as a result of growing numbers of injection drug abusers.

“Overall, the world is failing in its response to AIDS and the commitments that were made,” Piot said. “The virus is running faster than all of us.”

The cost of responding to the crisis also is growing, he said, rising to $12 billion per year from the $10 billion that previously was estimated. Actual funding, however, is about $6 billion per year, half the needed amount but a 15-fold increase from the resources available when UNAIDS was established in 1996.

“There is finally some money to work with,” Piot said. “There is definitely some progress, but not enough.”

Piot noted that the number of people being treated for HIV infection has doubled in the last two years. Even so, fewer than one in 10 people in developing countries have access to the drugs necessary to keep the virus in check.

Perhaps even more troubling, he said, only one in five people worldwide are reached by HIV prevention programs. The situation is much worse in places such as Russia, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, where the emerging epidemic is concentrated in groups that are highly stigmatized — primarily drug abusers and homosexuals.

Governments in those regions fail to see that prevention efforts represent “harm reduction for the entire nation,” Piot said.

The report was released Tuesday in anticipation of the 15th International AIDS Conference, which will take place next week in Bangkok, Thailand.

The estimate of 38 million HIV-positive people worldwide is the highest total yet in the epidemic.

In the United States, the number of people living with HIV is now 950,000 according to the report, up from 900,000 in 2001. Half of new U.S. infections are among blacks.

South Africa still has the largest single group of infected people at 5.3 million, but India is close behind with 5.1 million and gaining, according to the report. Piot and others have warned that India will soon overtake South Africa.