Preventing HIV Infection

Quick Facts on HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS does not discriminate. Everyone is at risk regardless of age race, class, income or religion.

Poverty, discrimination and stigma feed the pandemic. To stop the pandemic, the response must be multisectoral, culturally sensitive, adequately funded and use human rights- including gender equity -as a foundation.

What Makes Us Vulnerable to Infection?

Biological and cultural factors (e.g., girls and women).
Situations (e.g., displaced persons, refugees, poverty stricken, mobile and transient populations such as truck drivers, migrant workers, miners, uniformed services, and prison populations).
Risky behaviour (e.g., anyone not practicing safer sexual behaviour -ranging from abstinence, delayed sexual activity and condom use, commercial sex workers and their clients, men who have sex with men and intravenous drug users).

How many are infected?

By the end of 2000, global estimates (children and adults) included:

36.1 million people infected including 1.4 million children (those under 15 years)

In the year 2000 alone, there were 5.3 million new infections. Everyday HIV infects over 1700 children and 13,000 others between the ages of 15-49 (47% of whom are women)

Over 50% of new infections are in young people between the ages of 15-24 years. And, more than 95% of those infected are in developing countries

Regional HIV/AIDS statistics and features, end of 2000¹

	Epidemic started	Adults & children living with HIV/AIDS	Adults & children newly infected with HIV	Adult prevalence rate*	% of HIV-positive adults who are women	Main mode(s) of transmission for those living with HIV/AIDS**
Sub-Saharan Africa	late '70s - early '80s	25.3 million	3.8 million	8.8%	55%	Hetero
North Africa & Middle East	late '80s	400,000	80,000	0.2%	40%	Hetero, IDU
South and South-East Asia	late '80s	5.8 million	780,000	0.56%	35%	Hetero, IDU
East Asia & Pacific	late '80s	640,000	130,000	0.07%	13%	IDU, Hetero, MSM
Latin America	late '70s - late '80s	1.4 million	150,000	0.5 %	25%	MSM, IDU, Hetero
Caribbean	late '70s - late '80s	390,000	60,000	2.3%	35%	Hetero, MSM
Eastern Europe & Central Asia	early '90s	700,000	250,000	0.35%	25%	IDU
Western Europe	late '70s - early '80s	540,000	30,000	0.24%	25%	MSM, IDU
North America	late '70s - early '80s	920,000	45,000	0.6%	20%	MSM, IDU, Hetero
Australia & New Zealand	late '70s - early '80s	15,000	500	0.13%	10%	MSM
TOTAL		36.1 million	5.3 million	1.1%	47%

* The proportion of adults (15 to 49 years of age) living with HIV/AIDS in 2000, using 2000 population numbers

Over the past 20 years, an estimated 21.8 million people have died from HIV/AIDS. In the year 2000 alone, the figure was 4.3 million including 500,000 children (under 15 years old). The end of 1999 saw 13.2 million children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Africa is the worst hit continent. Adult prevalence rates rise as high as 20% in Namibia and Zambia, 24% in Lesotho, 25% in Swaziland and Zimbabwe, and almost 36% in Botswana.

India ranks second in the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS (3.7 million) behind South Africa (4.2 million).

Some sub-regions in the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are showing dramatic increases in infection rates. In the Russian Federation, there were more infections registered in 2000 than in all previous years combined.

Ignorance still abounds: in a recent survey in 17 countries on three continents showed that more than half the adolescent questioned could not name a single method of protecting themselves against HIV/AIDS.

In responding to the epidemic, prevention, care and treatment are linked along a broad continuum in which one element reinforces the other. Prevention is a long-term response – campaigns can be complex to implement and results take time to appear. However, prevention is the mainstay of any response, from ensuring a safe blood supply, empowering young people with life skills to make responsible decisions, to 100% condom use prevention efforts are always relevant. The time to act is now.

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¹ - UNAIDS and WHO (2000) AIDS epidemic update: December 2000, Geneva 2000

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