The diary of a doll

01 December, 2004
8:49 p.m.

World AIDS Day
Listening to: Queen: We are the champions
Mood:

This may not be nice but it's important.

Taken from:

Worldwide HIV & AIDS Epidemic Statics

People living with HIV
According to estimates from the UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update (December 2004), 37.2 million adults and 2.2 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2004. 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 2004, and the number of deaths
During 2004, 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 in the richer countries. 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 the 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 2004, an estimated 640,000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. In 2003, over 90% of newly infected children were babies born to HIV-positive women, who acquired the virus at birth or through their mother's breast milk. Of these, almost nine-tenths were 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 antiretroviral treatment, which prolongs the lives of HIV+ people. This causes an increase in the pool of HIV+ people who are able to transmit the virus onwards. It is estimated that 1.6 million people are living with HIV in North America and Western Europe - a figure that includes 65,000 who were newly infected in 2004. AIDS claimed approximately 22,500 lives in 2004, although the rate of AIDS-related deaths is continuing to decline as ARV medicines are made increasingly available. 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.

Sub-Saharan Africa
The area in Africa south of the Sahara desert, 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 2004. This brought the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region to 25.4 million by the end of the year.

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 antiretroviral 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. HIV prevalence varies considerably across the continent - ranging from less than 1% in Mauritania to almost 40% in Botswana and Swaziland.

AIDS killed approximately 2.3 million people in 2004. In the coming years, unless there is far broader access to life prolonging therapy, and providing that new infections do not start rising again, the number of surviving HIV positive Africans can be expected to stabilize and finally shrink, as AIDS increasingly claims the lives of those infected 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 shows no signs of declining. Some 210,000 people were infected with HIV in 2004, bringing the total number of people living with the virus to over 1.4 million. AIDS claimed 60,000 lives in 2004. Only a small proportion of HIV+ people in these areas can hope to receive ARV medication, so the AIDS death rate is high &ndash certainly, 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 1.2 million people in Asia acquired HIV in 2004, bringing the number of people living with HIV to an estimated 8.2 million. A further 540,000 people are estimated to have died of AIDS in 2004.

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 the attention is only drawn 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 high population levels could have a much higher HIV problem than is already apparent &ndash 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 &ndash perhaps due to strict rules governing sexual behaviour - is not supported by the latest estimates, which indicate that 92,000 people acquired an HIV infection in 2004, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa to an estimated 540, 000. AIDS killed a further 28,000 people in 2004.

Latin America and the Caribbean
More than 2.1 million people are now living with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean including the estimated 310,000 that contracted HIV in 2004. At least 130,000 people died of AIDS in the same period - the highest regional death toll after sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

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
What is needed on a massive national and international level is to:

Challenge the myths and misconceptions about human sexuality that translate into dangerous sexual practices.
Work and legislation to reduce prejudice felt by HIV+ people around the world and the discrimination that prevents people from &lsquocoming out&rsquo 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.

Pain/Pleasure