HIV/AIDS Fact Sheet

Global Challenge:

• Of the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS today, over 95% live in developing countries.
• In developing countries, less than 10% of those infected have access to antiretroviral therapy, which is used to treat HIV/AIDS.
• In countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, where 20-25% of the adult population is infected, AIDS is set to claim the lives of around half of all 15 year-olds.
• HIV/AIDS can destroy entire societies.  The diagram below shows the impact that HIV/AIDS can have on access to education, and ultimately, a nation's economic competitiveness.

Global Hope:

• There is abundant evidence that prevention works, as shown in urban gay communities in North America and Western Europe, among injecting drug users in Australia, and in heterosexual populations in countries like Brazil, Senegal, Thailand and Uganda. For example, in the Ugandan capital Kampala, determined prevention efforts (as part of a countrywide mobilization against AIDS) sent HIV prevalence rates among teenage women plummeting from 28% in 1991 to 6% in 1998.
• By the end of 2004, 700,000 people living with AIDS were receiving some form of retroviral treatment. This is an increase of approximately 75% from a year ago. Unfortunately, this represents only about 12% of the total number of people needing treatment. (UNAIDS, Jan 2005)
• Most international actors now recognize the HIV/AIDS epidemic as one of the most significant challenges to human life and well-being, and are starting to take action against the epidemic.

Sources: Physicians for Human Rights, Facts on HIV/AIDS.
Education and AIDS Model adapted from: The World Bank Group Millennium Development Goals (September 2004).
Center for Global Development, Campaign 2004: A Guide to Global Development. Global HIV/AIDS and the Developing World.