Facts about Aids

Frontline Aids victims: girls in the South

Regional estimates of the number of people living with HIV/Aids Regional estimates of the number of people living with HIV/Aids Aids deaths and number of people living with HIV/Aids

Youth, in particular girls, and developing countries bear the brunt of Aids’ virulent spread Global estimates of the HIV/Aids epidemic, December 1998 People newly infected with HIV in 1998 Total 5 800 000 Adults 5 200 000 Women 2 100 000 Children under 15 590 000 Number of people living with HIV/Aids Total 33 400 000 Adults 32 200 000 Women 13 800 000 Children under 15 1 200 000 Aids deaths in 1998 Total 2 500 000 Adults 2 000 000 Women 900 000 Children under 15 510 000 Total number of Aids deaths since the beginning of the epidemic Total 13 900 000 Adults 10 700 000 Women 4 700 000 Children under 15 3 200 000 Some two decades after the virus started to spread, HIV/Aids is a growing crisis disproportionately weighing on youth and on the developing world. About a third of the 33.4 million people world-wide living with HIV are aged 15-24, and half of all new HIV infections occur among this group. Five young people are infected every minute. Furthermore, studies in Africa show girls have four or more times the infection rate of boys. The developing world accounted for 95%, and Sub-Saharan Africa alone for 70% of new HIV infections in 1998. Aids is now the biggest killer in Africa. Nine out of ten HIV infections among children under 15 last year occurred in Africa. Infant mortality in some African countries rose as much as 150% in 1998 alone. Life expectancy is falling by as much as 20 years as a result of Aids. The crisis is also having an impact on economic development, with many African companies saying Aids illness and death costs sometimes total more than corporate profits. Elsewhere too the crisis is gaining ground. In Asia, of the 7.2 million people living with Aids, a fifth were infected last year. What is perhaps most startling is that HIV is expected to gather force as a killer. In 1990 it accounted for 8.6% of adult deaths from infectious diseases in the developing world. By 2020, that figure is expected to rise to 37.1%. Facts about Aids Aids—acquired immunodeficiency syndrome—is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which weakens the body’s immune system. Once they have an established HIV infection, individuals are infected for life and will probably succumb to serious opportunistic infections caused by the weakening of their immune system. Treatment with antiretroviral drugs can slow the progression of HIV infection but these expensive medications are not available to most people in the developing world, who often lack access even to drugs that combat opportunistic infections. In individuals who do not get antiretroviral therapy, the time between infection with HIV and the development of the serious illnesses that define Aids is around eight years, and most patients do not survive much more than two years after their onset. HIV spreads through unprotected sex (intercourse without a condom), transfusions of unscreened blood, contaminated needles (most frequently for injecting drug use), and from an infected woman to her child during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. HIV is a slow-acting virus. The majority of infected individuals look healthy and feel well for many years after infection; they may not even suspect they harbour the virus, though they can transmit it to others. Conservative UNAIDS estimates are that 90% of all HIV-infected people worldwide do not know they have the virus. A laboratory blood or saliva test is the only certain way to determine whether an individual is HIV-positive. Source: UNAIDS