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  • AIDS Facts

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  • Aids Facts

In the 25 years since HIV AIDS was first identified as a disease, over 65 million people have become infected and over 25 million people have died of AIDS related causes.

  • The epidemic has spread across the world and no country has been spared.
  • Every day 8,000 people die from AIDS and 18,000 men and women are newly infected.
  • The incidence of HIV AIDS is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Latest estimates show that almost 40 million people are living with HIV.
  • South Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV AIDS in the world, with almost 6 million people living with the disease.

One of the saddest consequences of the disease is its impact on children. To put this in perspective, in Swaziland one in four households is headed by a child whose parents have died of AIDS. Sadly, there are already 14 million AIDS orphans in the world today. This is largely due to the fact that women are not only biologically more at risk than men but are also subject to high levels of sexual violence because of their inferior social status. Young women and adolescent girls are a high-risk category, but so are sex workers, injecting drug users and men who have sex with men.

The spread of the disease is worsened by the realities of economic injustice, gender inequalities, homophobia and prostitution. These underlying social causes make HIV AIDS such a complex disease. All these factors have created taboos and stigmas that have to be challenged in order that HIV AIDS is "normalised" as a disease in order for it to be treated more effectively at all levels.

The situation is already serious but if infection rates continue to escalate, the disease could pose a long term threat to human society.

Global summary of the AIDS epidemic - December 2006

  • NUMBER OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV IN 2006
  • Official estimate
  • Range of Estimate
  • Total
  • 39.5 million
  • 34.1 - 47.1 million
  • Adults
  • 37.2 million
  • 32.1 - 44.5 million
  • Women
  • 17.7 million
  • 15.1 - 20.9 million
  • Children under 15 years
  • 2.3 million
  • 1.7 - 3.5 million
  • PEOPLE NEWLY INFECTED WITH HIV IN 2006*
  • *SINGLE LAST ESTIMATES DONE IN 2004 
  •  
  • Total
  • 4.3 million
  • 3.6 - 6.6 million
  • Adults
  • 3.8 million
  • 3.2 - 5.7 million
  • Children under 15 years
  • 530,000
  • 410,000 - 660,000
  • AIDS DEATHS IN 2006
  •  
  •  
  • Total
  • 2.9 million
  • 2.5 - 3.5 million
  • Adults
  • 2.6 million
  • 2.2 - 3.0 million
  • Children under 15 years
  • 380,000
  • 290,000 - 500,000