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22nd
June, 2006
There
were an estimated 38.6 million people living with HIV at the
end of last year, according to figures in the latest global
snaptshot from UNAIDS.
The report, which was released late last month, shows that
an estimated 4.1 million people became newly infected with
HIV last year and 2.8 million lost their lives to AIDS.
It shows that of those living with AIDS, about 95 per cent
are living in developing countries.
It warns that unless major progress is made, global attempts
to reach UN benchmarks on poverty, hunger and childhood mortality
are likely to fall short.
“HIV/AIDS has spread further, faster and with more catastrophic
long-term effects that any other disease,” says UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan.
“In 25 short years, AIDS has gone from local obscurity
to global emergency. And the world has been unconscionably
slow in meeting one of the most vital aspects of the struggle:
measures to fight the spread of AIDS among women and girls.”
More than 25 million people have died from AIDS and in sub-Saharan
Africa, it’s estimated that 12 million children have
been orphaned as a result of the diease.
Africa remains the “global epicentre” of the AIDS
pandemic - in South Africa, for example, almost one in five
adults aged between 15 and 49 years were estimated to be living
with HIV last year.
While declines in the prevalence of HIV have been recorded
in nations including Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Haiti,
parts of India, Cambodia and Thailand, in other countries
- notably China, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam -
there have been increases in HIV prevalence.
www.unaids.org
- DAVID ADAMS
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