The United Nations has cut its estimates of how many people are infected with the Aids virus from nearly 40 million to 33 million.
In a report to be issued today, the UN says revised estimates on HIV in India account for a large part of the decrease.
The agency admitted it overestimated how many people are infected with the incurable virus and said better methods of collecting data show it is not quite a common as feared.
After originally estimating some 5.7 million people were infected in India, the UN more than halved that estimate, to 2.5 million.
The new numbers suggest that some 33.2 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus - about 30.8 million adults and 2.5 million children.
The UN Aids agency Unaids estimated that 1.7 million people became newly infected in sub-Saharan Africa this year, a significant reduction since 2001. But Africa remains by far the continent hardest hit by Aids, with 22.5 million people infected with HIV.
"New HIV infections and mortality are declining and the prevalence of HIV leveling. But with more than 6,800 new infections and over 5,700 deaths each day due to Aids, we must expand our efforts in order to significantly reduce the impact of Aids worldwide," said Dr Peter Piot, executive director of Unaids.