Global AIDS Basics
Each year on World AIDS Day, December 1, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) releases an annual update on the global epidemic. Highlights of the December 2006 report include the following:
• 39.5 million people are living with HIV worldwide, roughly 95% in low- and middle-income countries.
• 2.9 million people died of AIDS during 2006—nearly 8,000 every day.
• 4.3 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2006—almost 12,000 every day.
• Nearly 25 million people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa, roughly two-thirds (63%) of the global total.
• AIDS is spreading rapidly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where new infections increased nearly 70% over the past two years.
• There are 2.3 million children under 15 years living with HIV, and 530,000 children were newly infected with HIV during 2006, most of them through mother-to-child transmission of the virus. A child dies of AIDS nearly every minute of every day.
• Globally, and in every region, more women than ever before are living with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, women account for 59% of all people with HIV/AIDS.
• Young people (15-24 years of age) accounted for 40% of new HIV infections among adults in 2006.
• Worldwide, less than 20% of people at risk of HIV infection have access to basic prevention services.
• At least 25 million people have died of AIDS since the disease was first recognized in 1981.
• A total of $10 billion is expected to be available for AIDS funding in 2007—just 55% of the $18.1 billion that will be needed to provide comprehensive prevention, treatment, and care worldwide.
• As many as 15 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS, most of them in Africa, and the number of AIDS orphans worldwide is expected to reach 20 million by 2010.
The following map shows how the epidemic is impacting different regions of the world:
