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According to estimates from the Joint United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 37 million adults and 2.5 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2003. This is more than 50% higher than the figures projected by WHO in 1991 on the basis of the data then available. Number of people living with HIV in 2003
During 2003, some 5 million people became infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS. Number of people infected with HIV in 2003
The year also saw 3 million deaths from HIV/AIDS - a high global, despite antiretroviral therapy which reduced AIDS and AIDS related deaths in the richer countries.
Deaths among those already infected will continue to increase for some years even if prevention programmes manage to cut the number of new infections to zero. However, with the HIV-positive population still expanding the annual number of AIDS deaths can be expected to increase for many years. Total Number of AIDS deaths since the beginning of the epidemic until the end of 2001
HIV & AIDS around the world The overwhelming majority of people with HIV, some 95% of the global total, live in the developing world. The proportion is set to grow even further as infection rates continue to rise in countries where poverty, poor health care systems and limited resources for prevention and care fuel the spread of the virus. HIV prevalence rates 2003
For more about prevalence, please see AIDS around the world Sub-Saharan Africa In Africa south of the Sahara desert, an estimated 3.2 million adults and children became infected with HIV during the year 2003. This brought the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region to 26.6 million by the end of the year. For the moment, overall HIV prevalence, the regional total of people living with HIV or AIDS continues to rise because there are still more newly infected individuals joining it every year than there are people leaving it through death. However, as people infected years ago succumb to HIV related illnesses (average survival in absence of antiretroviral therapy is estimated at around 8-10 years), mortality from AIDS is increasing. HIV prevalence varies considerably across the continent- ranging from less than 1% in Mauritania to almost 40% in Botswana and Swaziland. AIDS killed approximately 2.3 million people in 2003. In the coming years, unless there is far broader access to life prolonging therapy, and providing that new infections do not start rising again, the number of surviving HIV positive Africans can be expected to stabilize and finally shrink, as AIDS increasingly claims the lives of those infected long time ago.
Unlike women in other regions in the world, African women are considerably more likely - at least 1.2 times- to be infected with HIV than men. There are a number of reasons why female prevalence is higher than male in this region, including the greater efficiency of male -to female HIV transmission through sex and the younger age at initial infection for women. See our web pages AIDS in Africa, AIDS orphans in Africa, The impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa and HIV and AIDS drugs in Africa. Asia and the Pacific Over 1 million people in Asia and the Pacific acquired HIV in 2003, bringing the number of people living with HIV to an estimated 7.4 million. A further 500,000 people are estimated to have died of AIDS in 2003.
National adult prevalence is still under 1% in the majority of this region's countries. That figure, though, can be misleading. Several countries in the region are so large and populous that the attention is only drawn to major urban areas, which may obscure serious epidemics in some smaller provinces and states. Although national adult HIV prevalence in India, for example, is below 1%, five states have an estimated prevalence of over 1% among adults.
Moreover, there are increasing warning signals that serious HIV outbreaks threaten in several countries. Injecting drug use and sex work are so pervasive in some areas that even countries with currently low infection levels could see epidemics surge suddenly. See our individual pages of AIDS in India, China and Thailand. North Africa and the Middle East The notion that this region has sidestepped the global epidemic is not supported by the latest estimates, which indicate that 55,000 people acquired HIV infection in the past year, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa. AIDS killed a further 45,000 people in 2003.
There is a potential for a considerable rise in the number of HIV infections in this region. See our web pages of HIV and AIDS in the Middel East and North Africa. More than 2 million people are now living with HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean including the estimates 200,000 that contracted HIV in the past year. At least 100,000 people died of AIDS in the same period- the highest regional death toll after sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
All the main modes of transmission coexists in most countries, along with significant levels of risky behaviour- such as early sexual debut, unprotected sex with multiple partners and the use of unclean drug-injecting equipment. See our web pages of HIV and AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean . The AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia shows no signs of declining. Some 230,000 people were infected with HIV in 2003, bringing the total number of people living with the virus to 1.5 million. AIDS claimed 30,000 lives in the past year.
Worst affected are the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), but HIV continues to spread in Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan, while more recent epidemics are now evident in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is now estimated that around 1 million people aged 15-49 are living with HIV in the Russian Federation (although various estimates from that country put the figure at between 600,000and 1.5 million). See our web page of AIDS in the Russian Federation Ukraine, and Belarus. The total number of people living with HIV continues to rise in high-income countries, largely due to widespread access to antiretroviral treatment. It is estimated that 1.6 million people are living with HIV in these countries- a figure that includes 80,000 who were newly infected in 2003. AIDS claimed approximately 18,000 lives in the past year.
There is mounting evidence that prevention activities in several high-income countries are not keeping pace with the changes occurring in the spread of HIV. Such, shortcomings are most evident where HIV is lodged also among marginalized groups of populations, including immigrants and refugees. See our web page HIV and AIDS epidemic in high income countries Young people and children with HIV/AIDS and the AIDS orphans Around half of the people who acquire HIV become infected before they turn 25 and typically die of the life-threatening illnesses called AIDS before their 35th birthday. This age factor makes AIDS uniquely threatening to children. By the end of 2001, the epidemic has left behind a cumulative total of 14 million AIDS orphans, defined as those having lost one or both parents to AIDS before reaching the age of 15. In 2003, an estimated 700,000 children aged 14 or younger became infected with HIV. Over 90% were babies born to HIV-positive women, who acquired the virus at birth or through their mother's breast milk. Of these, almost nine-tenths were in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa's lead in mother-to-child transmission of HIV was firmer than ever despite the evidence that HIV ultimately impairs women's fertility; once infected, a woman can be expected to bear 20 % fewer children than she otherwise would. More HIV and AIDS statistics can be found here. Notes # The ranges around the estimates in these tables define the boundaries within which the actual numbers lie, based on the best available information. These ranges are more precise than those of previous years, and work is under way to increase even further the precision of the estimates that will be published mid-2004. (UNAIDS) The AIDS Epidemic Update 2003 where these figures come from presents both estimates and ranges around their estimates to indicate level of precision. The test refers to estimates and the tables include both estimates and ranges. * The proportion of adults (15 to 49 years of age) living with HIV/AIDS in 2003, using 2003 population numbers. Adults in this report are defined as men and women aged 15-49. This age range captures those in their most sexually active years. While the risk of HIV infection continues beyond the age of 50, the fast majority of people with substantial risk behaviour are likely to have become infected by this age. Since population structures differ greatly from one country to another, especially for children and the upper adult ages, the restriction of 'adults' to 15-49 has the advantage of making different populations more comparable. The latest UNAIDS and WHO estimates published in 2003 are lower than those published in 2002. But the number of people living with HIV/AIDS is not actually lower, nor is there a decline in the epidemic. Better data and understanding has enabled the UNAIDS Secretariat and WHO to arrive at more accurate estimates. UNAIDS (2003) AIDS epidemic update, December |
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