| (Reuters) - A major international
conference on AIDS starts in Vienna on Sunday, when thousands of scientists,
health workers, activists, and government officials will gather to discuss
the latest advances against the disease.
An estimated 33.4 million people worldwide are infected
with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, according to
figures issued by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
Here are some AIDS figures from around the world:
THE GLOBAL PICTURE:
- Global deaths from AIDS reached an estimated 2 million
in 2008, the same number as in 2007. Since the AIDS pandemic started in
the early 1980s, almost 60 million people have been infected with the
virus and 25 million have died of HIV-related causes.
- In 2008, around 430,000 children were born with HIV,
bringing to 2.1 million the total number of children under 15 living with
HIV. Young people account for around 40 percent of all new adult (those
aged 15 and over) HIV infections worldwide.
- Although 33.4 million people had the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2008, more of them are living with HIV
than ever before, at least in part due to the beneficial effects of AIDS
drugs known as antiretroviral therapy. There are currently 26.3 million
adults over 25 living with HIV.
AFRICA & ASIA:
- 71 percent of AIDS-related deaths and 91 percent of all
new infections among children.
- An estimated 1.9 million people were newly infected
with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa in 2008, bringing to 22.4 million the
number of Africans living with HIV.
- The nine countries in southern Africa continue to bear
a disproportionate share of the global AIDS burden. Each of them has an
adult HIV rate of more than 10 percent.
- With an adult HIV prevalence of 26 percent in 2007,
Swaziland has the most severe level of infection in the world. Lesotho's
epidemic seems to have stabilised, with an adult HIV rate of 23.2 percent
in 2008.
- South Africa continues to be home to the world's
largest population of people living with HIV -- 5.7 million in 2007. More
than 250,000 South Africans died of AIDS-related diseases in 2008 and
almost 2 million children there have lost one or both parents to the
epidemic.
- Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population, is
second only to sub-Saharan Africa in terms of people living with HIV. An
estimated 4.7 million people were living with HIV in Asia in 2008.
- India accounts for roughly half of Asia's HIV cases.
With the exception of Thailand, where HIV affects 1.4 percent of adults,
every country in Asia has an adult HIV infection rate of less than 1
percent.
OTHER REGIONS:
- Rates of HIV in eastern Europe and Central Asia are on
the rise, with severe and growing epidemics in Ukraine and Russia. With an
adult HIV prevalence of 1.6 percent in 2007, Ukraine has the highest
prevalence in all of Europe. In eastern Europe 1.5 million people were
living with HIV.
- In Latin America, new HIV infections totalled an
estimated 170,000 in 2008 bringing to 2 million the number of people
living with HIV there. An estimated 77,000 people died of AIDS-related
illnesses there last year.
- There were 2.3 million people living with HIV in 2008
in North America and western and central Europe.
Sources:Reuters/UNAIDS
(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; editing by
Kate Kelland and Jon Loades-Carter) |
