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According to estimates from the Joint United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 38.6 million adults and 3.2 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2002. This is more than 50% higher than the figures projected by WHO in 1991 on the basis of the data then available. |
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Number of people living with HIV in 2002 |
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| During
2002, some 5 million people became infected with the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) which causes AIDS.
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Number of people infected with HIV in 2002 |
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The year also saw 3.1 million deaths from HIV/AIDS - a higher global total than in any year since the beginning of the epidemic, despite antiretroviral therapy which reduced AIDS and AIDS related deaths in the richer countries. |
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| 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.
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| Total Number of AIDS deaths since the beginning of the epidemic until the end of 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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HIV & AIDS around the world |
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| 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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For
more about prevalence, please see AIDS around the world |
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Sub-Saharan Africa |
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In Africa south of the Sahara desert, an estimated 3.5 million adults and children became infected with HIV during the year 2002. This brought the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region to 29.4 million by the end of the year. The number of people who became infected during the year was slightly less than the 2000 total of 3.8 million. However the decreasing trend in infections will not continue if countries such as Nigeria begin experiencing a rapid expansion. For the moment, overall HIV prevalence, the regional total of people living with HIV or AIDS continues to rise because there are still more newly infected individuals joining it 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. AIDS deaths in 2002 totalled 2.4 million, as compared with 2.2 million in 2001. 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. |
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| It
is estimated that between
12 and 13 African women are currently infected for every 10 African
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.
See our web pages AIDS in Africa, AIDS orphans in Africa and HIV and AIDS drugs in Africa. |
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Asia |
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| An estimated 700,000 adults, 450,000 of them men, have become infected in South and South - East Asia in the course of the year 2002. Overall, as of end of 2002, the region is estimated to have 6.0 million adults and children living with HIV or AIDS. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The region of East Asia and the Pacific is still keeping HIV at bay in most of its huge population. Some 270,000 adults and children became infected in the course of the year. This brings the number of people living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2002 to 1.2 million, representing just 0.1% of the region's adult population, as compared with the prevalence rate of 0.6 % in South and South- East Asia. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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See Avert individual pages of AIDS in India, China and Thailand. |
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North Africa and the Middle East |
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| Few new country estimates of HIV infection were produced for this region between 1994 and 1999. Recent evidence, however, suggests that new infections are on the rise. With an estimated 83,000 new infections in the region during 2002 the number of adults and children living with HIV/AIDS had reached 550,000. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Latin America and the Caribbean |
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In Latin America an estimated 150,000 and children became infected during 2002. An estimated 1.5 million adults and children are living with HIV in Latin America an estimated 440,000 in the Carribean - a region that is experiencing diverse epidemics. In places where HIV is transmitted through sex between men and women, a far larger population is immediately at risk. This is the transmission pattern in the Caribbean, where HIV rates are the highest in the world outside Africa. |
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Eastern Europe and Central Asia |
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| The estimated number of adults and children living with HIV or AIDS in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union was 420,000 at the end of 1999. Just three years later, a conservative estimate puts the figure at 1.2 Million. Most of the quarter million adults who became infected in 2002 are men, the majority of them injecting drug users. During the year new epidemics in drug injectors emerged in Uzbekistan and in Estonia, a country which reported far more HIV cases in 2001 than in any previous year | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| HIV
shows no sign of curbing its exponential growth in the Russian Federation.
The number of cases reported in the Russian Federation during the first
six months rocketed to 40,000, in 2001. This is far more than the total
of 29,000 infections registered in the country between 1987 and 1999.
However, even this massive rise understates the real growth in the epidemic:
by Russian estimates, the national registration system captures just a
fraction of the infections. Unsafe drug-injecting practices are still
the major spur to HIV transmission in this huge nation.
See Avert web page AIDS in the Russian Federation Ukraine, and Belarus. |
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| High income countries |
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During the year 2002, 30,000 adults and children are estimated to
have acquired HIV in Western Europe, 45,000 in North America, and 500
in Australia and New Zealand. Overall HIV prevalence has risen slightly
in both regions, mainly because antiretroviral therapy is keeping HIV
positive people alive longer. |
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| Young people and children with HIV/AIDS and the AIDS orphans |
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| 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 2001, the epidemic has left behind a cumulative
total of 14 million AIDS orphans, defined as
those having lost one or both parents to AIDS before reaching the age
of 15.
In 2002, an estimated 800,000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. Over 90% 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 was 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. |
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Men and AIDS |
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| In all parts of the world except sub-Saharan
Africa, Middle East and North Africa there are more men infected with
HIV and dying of AIDS than women. Altogether, an estimated 2.2 million
men aged between 15-49 became infected during 2002, bringing the number
of adult males living with HIV or AIDS by the end of the year to 19.4
million.
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Women and AIDS |
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The proportion of adults living with HIV/AIDS who are women has been steadily increasing. In 2001, 50 % of the total number of people infected with HIV or living with AIDS were women AIDS now ranks as one of the leading causes of death among women aged 20 to 40 years in several cities in Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and North America. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world in which more women than men are infected with HIV and dying of AIDS. More HIV and AIDs statistics can be found here. |
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Taken
from : |
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UNAIDS Fact Sheet, Gender and HIV, August 2001 UNAIDS Report, AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2002 UNAIDS Report, Report of the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, July, 2002 |
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Notes
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* The proportion of adults (15 to 49 years of age) living with HIV/AIDS in 2001 using 2001 population numbers # MSM (sexual transmission among men who have sex with men). IDU (transmission through injecting drug use), Hetero (heterosexual transmission) These figures are estimates at the end of 2002, published by UNAIDS in the 'AIDS Epidemic Update', Decemeber 2002 and UNAIDS ' Report on the global HIV/AIDS Epidemic', July 2002. Adults in this report are defined as men and women aged 15-49. This age range captures those in their most sexually active years. While the risk of HIV infection continues beyond the age of 50, the fast majority of people with substantial risk behaviour are likely to have become infected by this age. Since population structures differ greatly from one country to another, especially for children and the upper adult ages, the restriction of 'adults' to 15-49 has the advantage of making different populations more comparable. |
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