International development ministers have been "far to slow" in their response to the global HIV/Aids epidemic, a Commons committee has said.

The public accounts committee report said it was not just the UK but the international community as a whole which was at fault.

The Department for International Development (DfID) is the second biggest donor on HIV/Aids, with a budget of some £270m in 2002/03.

In 2004 it announced that the United Kingdom would spend at least £1.5bn over the next three years on bilateral and international efforts to combat the disease.

Over the last two decades at least 65 million people have been infected and 20 million have died of HIV/Aids.

Although it is committed to tackling the disease, the department's overall response was described as "slow".

The report said the government's strategy was "unclear" on issues such as the balance between the development and humanitarian aspects of the epidemic.

And there were questions over the balance between bilateral and multilateral programmes.

"The global HIV/Aids epidemic is horrifying in scale, tragic for affected individuals, families and communities, and impedes development for the world’s poorest countries," said committee chairman Edward Leigh.

"Through DfID, the UK is the second largest donor on HIV/Aids after the United States but DfID's response has been far too slow, as has the response of the international community as a whole.

"Many multilateral institutions supported by DfID spend little of their budgets addressing HIV/Aids and DfID should exert more pressure through its funding to influence priorities.

"DfID needs to give higher priority to tackling the wider social and economic impacts of the epidemic, including household poverty.

"It seems unfair that some countries with lower HIV prevalence rates attract priority status over those with higher prevalence rates.

"DfID needs to develop clear criteria to strike the balance between developmental and humanitarian considerations in allocating funding, and between funding other organisations to provide support and responding itself.

"DfID should also look at why the prices of antiretroviral drugs have fallen only half as much in some developing countries as in others and help to negotiate reductions."