AIDS Alert International: CDC report provides hard statistics on AIDS’ toll
AIDS Alert International
CDC report provides hard statistics on AIDS’ toll
Latest news is grim
As the leading cause of death in Africa and the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide, the HIV/AIDS pandemic poses one of the greatest challenges to global public health, according to a special report published in the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s June 1, 2001, issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The report notes that AIDS also has caused tuberculosis rates to escalate over the past decade in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Africa, in some places increasing fourfold and reaching peaks of more than 400 cases per 100,000 population.1 More than 36 million people are infected worldwide, 20 million have died of AIDS, and between seven and eight people become newly infected with HIV each minute in Africa.
Here is a summary of the CDC’s report on the state of the pandemic worldwide:
• Sub-Saharan Africa: An estimated 25.3 million people were infected with HIV in this region of the world in 2000, and the average prevalence of HIV infection among people ages 15-49 was greater than one in 11 people.1 In Eastern Africa, about one in five people are infected; in Botswana, which has the highest HIV prevalence, 36% of the adult population is infected.1
Prevention strategies have succeeded in slowing transmission in several countries, including Uganda, where the overall adult HIV prevalence declined from 14% to 8% from 1990 to 2000.1 Senegal, in West Africa, has held steady with a 2% prevalence due to prevention efforts aimed at regulating commercial sex, condom promotion, community mobilization, and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).1
• Asia: High-risk populations continue to spread the disease at rapid rates. For example, Chinese injection drug users have an HIV rate of 82%. Another alarming factor is that there has been an increase in reported STDs among Asian men and women between 1989 and 1998.1
The estimated HIV prevalence in India for the 15-49 age group is 0.7%, which, while low, still means that more than three million people are infected.1 Thailand, where there is a 100% condom use campaign for commercial sex, has had a decline in STD and HIV prevalence in military recruits and women attending prenatal clinics.1
• Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Injection drug use has fueled a recent growth spurt in HIV infection rates as reflected in the rise of reported HIV cases in the Russian Federation from 10,000 in Jan. 1999 to 70,000 in Dec. 2000. In Ukraine, newly reported infections increased from 47 cases per year in the early 1990s to about 15,000 cases reported in 1997.1
• United States and Western Europe: Deaths have dropped substantially since the mid-1990s when multidrug antiretroviral therapies were introduced, but STD rates have risen in recent years and CDC officials are concerned that there might be a similar increase in HIV infection rates.1
• Latin America and the Caribbean: The adult prevalence rate is 2.1% in the Caribbean, and it’s about 1% in Barbados, Belize, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti, and Suriname. Brazil leads the region in providing treatment to HIV/AIDS patients, with free and universal access to antiretroviral therapies. As a result, Brazil has reported a decline in HIV-related deaths from 25 per 100,000 in 1995 to 15 per 100,000 in 1999.1
Reference
1. The Global HIV and AIDS Epidemic, 2001. MMWR 2001; 50:434-439.
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