The number of people living with HIV/AIDS over the past two years has increased and the worldwide total now stands at nearly 40 million, according to a report released on Tuesday by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization, Reuters UK reports.
The report, titled "AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2006," estimates that 4.3 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide this year and that about 2.9 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses. The report compared adjusted figures from 2004 rather than from 2005 because of changes in methodology and data (Nebehay, Reuters UK, 11/21). According to the report, 40% of new infections among people age 15 and older occurred among young people ages 15 to 24 (Baert, AFP/Yahoo! News, 11/21). In addition, there were 2.8 million new HIV infections in Africa in 2006, and 2.1 million people on the continent died of AIDS-related illnesses, the report said (Reuters, 11/21). The most evident increases in HIV incidence occurred in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with a nearly 70% increase in new infections over the past two years, according to the report (BBC News, 11/21). The number of new HIV infections in South and Southeast Asia increased by 15% since 2004, and the number of new infections in North Africa and the Middle East since 2004 increased by 12%, according to the report. The number of new HIV infections in Latin America and the Caribbean and North America remained stable. In addition, the number of HIV-positive women worldwide has reached 17.7 million, an increase of more than one million over the past two years, the report said. In sub-Saharan Africa, women account for 59% of people living with HIV/AIDS (Engeler, AP/Kansas City Star, 11/21).
Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be hardest hit, and within the region, Southern Africa in particular. Southern Africa has the highest burden of the disease. Thirty-two percent of HIV-positive people worldwide live in Southern Africa and 34% of deaths from AIDS-related illnesses occur there, according to AFP/Yahoo! News. The epidemic in South Africa, which "emerged a little later than most other HIV epidemics in the sub-region" now has "reached the stage where increasing numbers of people are dying" of AIDS-related illnesses, according to the report. Meanwhile, HIV prevalence in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe appears to have decreased (AFP/Yahoo! News, 11/21). However, HIV prevalence in Uganda is beginning to increase after the country successfully combated the epidemic in the past, the report said (Reuters, 11/21). By June, the number of people in Africa receiving antiretroviral drugs had increased tenfold since December 2003 to one million, according to AFP/Yahoo! News. However, "the sheer scale of need in this region means that a little less than one-quarter (23%) of the estimated 4.6 million people in need of antiretroviral therapy in this region are receiving it," the report said (AFP/Yahoo! News, 11/21).