More AIDS Facts

The following information is taken from Fast Facts About HIV, UNAIDS, 2007. Click here to download:

What is HIV/AIDS?

HIV stands for 'human immunodeficiency virus'. HIV is a virus (of the type called retrovirus) that infects cells of the human immune system (mainly CD4 positive T cells and macrophages—key components of the cellular immune system), and destroys or impairs their function. Infection with this virus results in the progressive deterioration of the immune system, leading to 'immune deficiency'. The immune system is considered deficient when it can no longer fulfill its role of fighting off infections and diseases. Immunodeficient people are more susceptible to a wide range of infections, most of which are rare among people without immune deficiency. Infections associated with severe immunodeficiency are known as 'opportunistic infections', because they take advantage of a weakened immune system. AIDS stands for 'acquired immunodeficiency syndrome' and is a surveillance definition based on signs, symptoms, infections, and cancers associated with the deficiency of the immune system that stems from infection with HIV.

Why Sub-Saharan Africa?

More than 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa (nearly half the population) live on less than $1 a day. This number is expected to rise to 400 million by 2015. (The World Bank)

Africa is home to five of the world's fastest-growing economies - but also 34 of the world's 49 poorest countries. (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ("UNCATD"))

In 2000, the nations of the world agreed to a set of "Millennium Development Goals" to reduce poverty, send children to school and ensure that families had access to clean water. Africa is the region least likely to meet these goals. (African Development Bank)

The following information was taken from two sources:
Questions and Answers, UNAIDS, November 2004. (Click here to download.)
AIDS Epidemic Update, UNAIDS and The World Health Organization ("WHO"), December 2007. (Click here to download.)

How widespread is AIDS in the world today?

The AIDS epidemic claimed 2.1 million (range 1.9-2.4 million) lives in 2007, and an estimated 2.5 million (1.8-4.1 million) people acquired the HIV virus in 2007-bringing to 33.2 million (range 30.6-36.1 million) the number of people globally living with the virus. Globally, about one-third of adults living with HIV are young people aged 15 - 24 years. Globally, new infections included an estimated 420,000 (350,00-540,000) children - over 90% of them infected through mother-to-child transmission ("MTCT"). Almost 90% of these new child infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, but the number of such infections is increasing in other regions, particularly Asia.

What is the situation in sub-Saharan Africa?

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most affected region in the global AIDS epidemic. More than two thirds (68%) of all people HIV-positive live in this region where more than three quarters (76%) of all AIDS deaths in 2007 occurred. It is estimated that 1.7 million [1.4 million–2.4 million] people were newly infected with HIV in 2007, bringing to 22.5 million [20.9 million–24.3 million] the total number of people living with the virus. Unlike other regions, the majority of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa (61%) are women.

In which countries is HIV prevalence the highest?

The scale and trends of the epidemics in the region vary considerably, with southern Africa most seriously affected. This subregion accounts for 35% of all people living with HIV and almost one third (32%) of all new HIV infections and AIDS deaths globally in 2007. National adult HIV prevalence exceeded 15% in eight countries in 2005 (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe). While there is evidence of a significant decline in the national HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe, the epidemics in most of the rest of the subregion have either reached or are approaching a plateau. Only in Mozambique latest HIV data (in 2005) have shown an increase in prevalence over the previous surveillance period.

Why are more women infected with HIV than men in sub-Saharan Africa?

Women in Africa are being infected at an earlier age than men, and the gap in HIV prevalence between them continues to grow. Today, there are, on average, 13 HIV-positive women for every 10 HIV-positive men. The difference in HIV-infection levels between women and men is even more pronounced among young people aged 15-24. Driven by poverty and the desire for a better life, many women and girls find themselves using sex as a commodity in exchange for goods, services, money, accommodation, or other basic necessities-often with older men. Social inequalities, poverty and migrant labor provide fertile ground for exploitative transactional and intergenerational sex in southern Africa.

What is the situation in Southern Africa?

Southern Africa remains the world's worst affected region, with epidemics that have grown rapidly. There is no single explanation for why the epidemic is so rampant in Southern Africa. A combination of factors, often working in concert, seem to be responsible, including: poverty and social instability that result in family disruption; high levels of other sexually transmitted infections; the low status of women; sexual violence; high mobility, which is largely linked to migratory labor systems; and ineffective leadership during critical periods in the epidemic's spread.

Are there any encouraging epidemiological developments in sub-Saharan Africa?

No country has so dramatically reversed its epidemic as Uganda, where national prevalence dropped from 13% in the early 1990s to 6.5% in 2005. Still, even Uganda cannot afford to relax: surveys suggest today's young people may have less AIDS knowledge than their counterparts in the 1990s.

Is the epidemic peaking in sub-Saharan Africa?

No. But there are indications that national HIV prevalence rates have been stable for several years across much of the region-albeit at very high levels in Southern Africa. Two factors are causing the apparent stabilization of prevalence rates: increasing AIDS mortality rates and increasing new infections. Overall prevalence has remained roughly level because AIDS has killed as many people each year. HIV prevalence might therefore appear stable, but it hides a persistently high number of annual, new HIV infections and an equally high number of AIDS deaths. We are not, therefore, witnessing a decline in this region's epidemic.

You can read this 2008 article from the BBC about the progress of HIV prevention in the past several years:

The following information was taken from the UNICEF Report, The State of the World's Children 2005: Childhood Under Threat, November 2004. (Click here to download.)

Number of children in the world: 2.2 billion.
Number of children in developing countries: 1.9 billion.
Number of children living in poverty: 1 billion.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, is the only region in the world where orphan numbers are increasing.

More than 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost at least one parent to AIDS, a number that is growing at the rate of one child every 14 seconds so that, by the end of 2010, sub-Saharan Africa will have more than 18 million children orphaned to AIDS.