JennyMominRI
<font color=red>Live from Red Sox Nation<br><font
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Messages
- 12,433
Dec 1st is world AIDS day.Will you wear a Cyber ribbon for one day?
There is one in my sig that can be cut and pasted
More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
By December 2005 women accounted for 46% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 57% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people (15-24 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide - more than 6,000 become infected with HIV every day.
Of the 6.5 million people in developing and transitional countries who need life-saving AIDS drugs, only 1 million are receiving them.
According to estimates from the UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update (December 2005), 38.0 million adults and 2.3 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2005. This is more than 50% higher than the figures projected by WHO in 1991 on the basis of the data then available.
Number of people infected during 2005, and the number of deaths
During 2005, some 4.9 million people became infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS.
The year also saw 3.1 million deaths from AIDS - a high global total, despite antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, which reduced AIDS-related deaths among those who received it. Deaths among those already infected will continue to increase for some years even if prevention programmes manage to cut the number of new infections to zero. However, with the HIV-positive population still expanding the annual number of AIDS deaths can be expected to increase for many years, unless more effective provision of ARV medication begins to slow the death rate.
Young people and children with HIV/AIDS and AIDS orphans
Around half of the people who acquire HIV become infected before they turn 25 and typically die of the life-threatening illnesses called AIDS before their 35th birthday. This age factor makes AIDS uniquely threatening to children. By the end of 2003, the epidemic had left behind 15 million AIDS orphans, defined as those having lost one or both parents to AIDS before reaching the age of 18. These orphans are vulnerable to poverty, exploitation and themselves becoming infected with HIV. They are often forced to leave the education system and find work, and sometimes to care for younger siblings or head a family.
In 2005, an estimated 700,000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. Over 90% of newly infected children are babies born to HIV-positive women, who acquire the virus at birth or through their mother's breast milk. Almost nine-tenths of such transmissions occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa's lead in mother-to-child transmission of HIV is firmer than ever despite the evidence that HIV ultimately impairs women's fertility; once infected, a woman can be expected to bear 20% fewer children than she otherwise would. Drugs are available to minimise the dangers of mother-to-child HIV transmission, but these are still often not reaching the places where they are most needed.
HIV/AIDS around the world
The overwhelming majority of people with HIV, some 95% of the global total, live in the developing world. The proportion is set to grow even further as infection rates continue to rise in countries where poverty, poor health care systems and limited resources for prevention and care fuel the spread of the virus.
High-income countries
The total number of people living with HIV continues to rise in high-income countries, largely due to widespread access to ARV treatment, which prolongs the lives of HIV+ people. This increases the pool of HIV+ people who are able to transmit the virus onwards. It is estimated that 1.2 million people are living with HIV in North America and 720,000 in Western and Central Europe.
In the aforementioned two regions, AIDS claimed approximately 30,000 lives in 2005, although the rate of AIDS-related deaths has been cut substantially through use of ARV medicines. There is mounting evidence that prevention activities in several high-income countries are not keeping pace with the spread of HIV and that in some places they are falling behind. Such shortcomings are most evident where HIV is found mainly among marginalized groups of the population, such as drug users, immigrants and refugees.
AVERT.org has pages about HIV and AIDS in the USA and in the UK, plus statistics pages covering many high income countries, including Australia, Canada and Western Europe.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The area in Africa south of the Sahara desert, known as sub-Saharan Africa, is by far the worst-affected in the world by the AIDS epidemic. The region has just over 10% of the world's population, but is home to over 60% of all people living with HIV. An estimated 3.1 million adults and children became infected with HIV during the year 2005. This brought the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region to 25.8 million by the end of the year. HIV prevalence varies considerably across this region - ranging from less than 1% in Mauritania and Senegal to almost 40% in Botswana and Swaziland.
For the moment, HIV prevalence continues to rise because there are still more newly infected individuals joining the pool of people living with HIV every year than there are people leaving it through death. However, as people infected years ago succumb to HIV related illnesses (average survival in absence of ARV therapy is estimated at around 8-10 years), mortality from AIDS is increasing, and the long-awaited rollout of AIDS drugs has still not happened in many places.
In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS killed approximately 2.4 million people in 2005. In the coming years, unless there is far broader access to life-prolonging therapy, the number of surviving HIV positive Africans can be expected to stabilize, as AIDS increasingly claims the lives of those infected a long time ago.
Unlike women in other regions in the world, African women are considerably more likely - at least 1.2 times - to be infected with HIV than men. There are a number of reasons why female prevalence is higher than male in this region, including the greater efficiency of male-to-female HIV transmission through sex and the younger age at initial infection for women.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia
The AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is rapidly expanding. Some 270,000 people were infected with HIV in 2005, bringing the total number of people living with the virus to around 1.6 million, and AIDS claimed an estimated 62,000 lives in 2005. Only a small proportion of HIV+ people in these areas can hope to receive ARV medication, so the AIDS death rate is higher than it might otherwise be.
Worst affected are the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), but HIV continues to spread in Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan, while more recent epidemics are now evident in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is now estimated that around 1 million people aged 15-49 are living with HIV in the Russian Federation (although various estimates from that country put the figure at between 600,000 and 1.5 million).
Asia
Around 1.1 million people in Asia acquired HIV in 2005, bringing the number of people living with HIV to an estimated 8.3 million. It is estimated that a further 520,000 people died of AIDS in 2005.
National adult prevalence is still under 1% in the majority of this region's countries. That figure, though, can be misleading. Several countries in the region are so large and populous that attention is drawn only to major urban areas, which may obscure serious epidemics in some smaller provinces and states. Although national adult HIV prevalence in India, for example, is below 1%, five states have an estimated prevalence of over 1% among adults. Countries with such large populations could have a much higher HIV problem than is already apparent - the populations are so large that a miscalculation of even half a percentage point would make a significant difference.
North Africa and the Middle East
The notion that this region has sidestepped the global epidemic - perhaps due to strict rules governing sexual behaviour - is not supported by the latest estimates, which indicate that 67,000 people acquired an HIV infection in 2005, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa to an estimated 510,000. AIDS killed a further 58,000 people in 2005.
Latin America and the Caribbean
An estimated 2.1 million people are now living with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the estimated 230,000 that contracted HIV in 2005. Around 90,000 people died of AIDS in the same period.
All the main modes of transmission exist in most countries, along with significant levels of risky behaviour - such as early sexual debut, unprotected sex with multiple partners and the use of unclean drug-injecting equipment.
The future
Future projections of the extent of the HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be made with any precision; what happens next will depend on what action is taken. In some scenarios, governments and societies mount a very vigorous and wide-ranging response which recognises AIDS as much more than just a health issue, and so HIV prevalence eventually decreases; in other projections, good intentions fail to deliver anything more than short-term and fractured responses in the worst-affected countries, and the number of people living with HIV soars.1
What are needed to turn the tide are massive responses at the national and international level:
People need to challenge the myths and misconceptions about human sexuality that translate into dangerous sexual practices.
Work and legislation is needed to reduce prejudice felt by HIV+ people around the world and the discrimination that prevents people from "coming out" as being HIV positive.
HIV prevention initiatives need to be increased, people across the world need to be made aware of the dangers, the risks, and the ways they can protect themselves.
Condom promotion and supply needs to be increased, and the appropriate sexual health education needs to be provided to young people before they reach an age where they become sexually active.
Medication and support needs to be provided to people who are already HIV+, so that they can live longer and more productive lives, support their families, and avoid transmitting the virus onwards.
Support and care needs to be provided for those children who have already been orphaned by AIDS, so that they can grow up safely, without experiencing poverty, exploitation, and themselves falling prey to HIV.
More information
There is one in my sig that can be cut and pasted
More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
By December 2005 women accounted for 46% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 57% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people (15-24 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide - more than 6,000 become infected with HIV every day.
Of the 6.5 million people in developing and transitional countries who need life-saving AIDS drugs, only 1 million are receiving them.
According to estimates from the UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update (December 2005), 38.0 million adults and 2.3 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2005. This is more than 50% higher than the figures projected by WHO in 1991 on the basis of the data then available.
Number of people infected during 2005, and the number of deaths
During 2005, some 4.9 million people became infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS.
The year also saw 3.1 million deaths from AIDS - a high global total, despite antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, which reduced AIDS-related deaths among those who received it. Deaths among those already infected will continue to increase for some years even if prevention programmes manage to cut the number of new infections to zero. However, with the HIV-positive population still expanding the annual number of AIDS deaths can be expected to increase for many years, unless more effective provision of ARV medication begins to slow the death rate.
Young people and children with HIV/AIDS and AIDS orphans
Around half of the people who acquire HIV become infected before they turn 25 and typically die of the life-threatening illnesses called AIDS before their 35th birthday. This age factor makes AIDS uniquely threatening to children. By the end of 2003, the epidemic had left behind 15 million AIDS orphans, defined as those having lost one or both parents to AIDS before reaching the age of 18. These orphans are vulnerable to poverty, exploitation and themselves becoming infected with HIV. They are often forced to leave the education system and find work, and sometimes to care for younger siblings or head a family.
In 2005, an estimated 700,000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. Over 90% of newly infected children are babies born to HIV-positive women, who acquire the virus at birth or through their mother's breast milk. Almost nine-tenths of such transmissions occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa's lead in mother-to-child transmission of HIV is firmer than ever despite the evidence that HIV ultimately impairs women's fertility; once infected, a woman can be expected to bear 20% fewer children than she otherwise would. Drugs are available to minimise the dangers of mother-to-child HIV transmission, but these are still often not reaching the places where they are most needed.
HIV/AIDS around the world
The overwhelming majority of people with HIV, some 95% of the global total, live in the developing world. The proportion is set to grow even further as infection rates continue to rise in countries where poverty, poor health care systems and limited resources for prevention and care fuel the spread of the virus.
High-income countries
The total number of people living with HIV continues to rise in high-income countries, largely due to widespread access to ARV treatment, which prolongs the lives of HIV+ people. This increases the pool of HIV+ people who are able to transmit the virus onwards. It is estimated that 1.2 million people are living with HIV in North America and 720,000 in Western and Central Europe.
In the aforementioned two regions, AIDS claimed approximately 30,000 lives in 2005, although the rate of AIDS-related deaths has been cut substantially through use of ARV medicines. There is mounting evidence that prevention activities in several high-income countries are not keeping pace with the spread of HIV and that in some places they are falling behind. Such shortcomings are most evident where HIV is found mainly among marginalized groups of the population, such as drug users, immigrants and refugees.
AVERT.org has pages about HIV and AIDS in the USA and in the UK, plus statistics pages covering many high income countries, including Australia, Canada and Western Europe.
Sub-Saharan Africa
The area in Africa south of the Sahara desert, known as sub-Saharan Africa, is by far the worst-affected in the world by the AIDS epidemic. The region has just over 10% of the world's population, but is home to over 60% of all people living with HIV. An estimated 3.1 million adults and children became infected with HIV during the year 2005. This brought the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region to 25.8 million by the end of the year. HIV prevalence varies considerably across this region - ranging from less than 1% in Mauritania and Senegal to almost 40% in Botswana and Swaziland.
For the moment, HIV prevalence continues to rise because there are still more newly infected individuals joining the pool of people living with HIV every year than there are people leaving it through death. However, as people infected years ago succumb to HIV related illnesses (average survival in absence of ARV therapy is estimated at around 8-10 years), mortality from AIDS is increasing, and the long-awaited rollout of AIDS drugs has still not happened in many places.
In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS killed approximately 2.4 million people in 2005. In the coming years, unless there is far broader access to life-prolonging therapy, the number of surviving HIV positive Africans can be expected to stabilize, as AIDS increasingly claims the lives of those infected a long time ago.
Unlike women in other regions in the world, African women are considerably more likely - at least 1.2 times - to be infected with HIV than men. There are a number of reasons why female prevalence is higher than male in this region, including the greater efficiency of male-to-female HIV transmission through sex and the younger age at initial infection for women.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia
The AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is rapidly expanding. Some 270,000 people were infected with HIV in 2005, bringing the total number of people living with the virus to around 1.6 million, and AIDS claimed an estimated 62,000 lives in 2005. Only a small proportion of HIV+ people in these areas can hope to receive ARV medication, so the AIDS death rate is higher than it might otherwise be.
Worst affected are the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), but HIV continues to spread in Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan, while more recent epidemics are now evident in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is now estimated that around 1 million people aged 15-49 are living with HIV in the Russian Federation (although various estimates from that country put the figure at between 600,000 and 1.5 million).
Asia
Around 1.1 million people in Asia acquired HIV in 2005, bringing the number of people living with HIV to an estimated 8.3 million. It is estimated that a further 520,000 people died of AIDS in 2005.
National adult prevalence is still under 1% in the majority of this region's countries. That figure, though, can be misleading. Several countries in the region are so large and populous that attention is drawn only to major urban areas, which may obscure serious epidemics in some smaller provinces and states. Although national adult HIV prevalence in India, for example, is below 1%, five states have an estimated prevalence of over 1% among adults. Countries with such large populations could have a much higher HIV problem than is already apparent - the populations are so large that a miscalculation of even half a percentage point would make a significant difference.
North Africa and the Middle East
The notion that this region has sidestepped the global epidemic - perhaps due to strict rules governing sexual behaviour - is not supported by the latest estimates, which indicate that 67,000 people acquired an HIV infection in 2005, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa to an estimated 510,000. AIDS killed a further 58,000 people in 2005.
Latin America and the Caribbean
An estimated 2.1 million people are now living with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the estimated 230,000 that contracted HIV in 2005. Around 90,000 people died of AIDS in the same period.
All the main modes of transmission exist in most countries, along with significant levels of risky behaviour - such as early sexual debut, unprotected sex with multiple partners and the use of unclean drug-injecting equipment.
The future
Future projections of the extent of the HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be made with any precision; what happens next will depend on what action is taken. In some scenarios, governments and societies mount a very vigorous and wide-ranging response which recognises AIDS as much more than just a health issue, and so HIV prevalence eventually decreases; in other projections, good intentions fail to deliver anything more than short-term and fractured responses in the worst-affected countries, and the number of people living with HIV soars.1
What are needed to turn the tide are massive responses at the national and international level:
People need to challenge the myths and misconceptions about human sexuality that translate into dangerous sexual practices.
Work and legislation is needed to reduce prejudice felt by HIV+ people around the world and the discrimination that prevents people from "coming out" as being HIV positive.
HIV prevention initiatives need to be increased, people across the world need to be made aware of the dangers, the risks, and the ways they can protect themselves.
Condom promotion and supply needs to be increased, and the appropriate sexual health education needs to be provided to young people before they reach an age where they become sexually active.
Medication and support needs to be provided to people who are already HIV+, so that they can live longer and more productive lives, support their families, and avoid transmitting the virus onwards.
Support and care needs to be provided for those children who have already been orphaned by AIDS, so that they can grow up safely, without experiencing poverty, exploitation, and themselves falling prey to HIV.
More information
in honour of you 
