The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic
Kimberly Page-Shafer, PhD, MPH
 At
the close of this past decade, an estimated 33.6 million men, women,
and children worldwide were infected with the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV). This virus, unknown until 17 years ago, now dominates national
and international affairs. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is now acknowledged
to be a contributing factor to changing national economies, to population
displacement, and most recently, to national and international security.
The following list highlights key findings from the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO)
as of December 1999.
32.4 million adults and 1.2
million children will be living with HIV by the end of 1999. While this
is a modest increase in comparison with the global HIV totals published
at the end of 1998, the WHO states that the true increase is larger
due to improved surveillance. Infections in a few populous countries
of Latin America and Asia were overestimated in 1998, hence the difference.
It is estimated that
in 1999, approximately 5.6 million people became infected with HIV worldwide.
The highest death
rate from HIV/AIDS to date, 2.6 million in 1999, is a higher global
total than in any year since the beginning of the epidemic -- in spite
of new antiretroviral therapies shown to extend survival, which are
widely available in wealthier countries.
With the HIV positive population expanding rapidly, the annual number
of AIDS deaths can be expected to increase for many years before peaking.
If prevention programs managed to eliminate new infections, deaths among
those already infected would continue mounting for some years.
HIV
has had an unprecedented impact on an important population demographic:
young, sexually active adults. Approximately one-half of all people
who acquire HIV become infected before they turn 25 and typically die
of one of the life-threatening opportunistic infections (OIs) associated
with AIDS before they reach 35 years of age.
As
a result of this age-associated epidemic, children are highly impacted.
The WHO estimates that as of 1999, there was a cumulative total of 11.2
million AIDS orphans, defined as those having lost their mothers before
reaching the age of 15. Many of these maternal orphans have also lost
their fathers to AIDS.
In 1999, an estimated
570,000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. Over 90%
were babies born to HIV positive women; these babies acquired the virus
either at birth or through their mother's breast milk. Approximately
90% of these pediatric infections occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The overwhelming majority
of people with HIV -- some 95% of the global total -- live in the developing
world. That proportion is set to grow even further as infection rates
continue to rise in countries where poverty, poor public health systems,
and limited resources for prevention and care fuel the spread of the
virus.
Regional HIV/AIDS Statistics
and Features, December 1998
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Statistics
