HIV/AIDS Worldwide

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reports that over 30 million adults and children worldwide are believed to be living with HIV infection - 1 in every 100 sexually active adults. If current transmission rates hold steady, by the year 2000 the number of people living with HIV/AIDS will soar to 40 million.

UNAIDS estimates that 2.3 million people died of AIDS in 1997, a 50% increase over 1996. Nearly half of those deaths were in women and 460,000 were in children under 15. In most parts of the world, the majority of new infections are in children and young people between the ages of 15 and 24.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, 3.8 million children under the age of 15 are estimated to have become infected with HIV and 2.7 million to have died. Over 90% of these children acquired the virus through their HIV-positive mothers, whether before or during birth or through breast feeding. So far, more than 8 million children have lost their mothers to AIDS when they were less than 15 years old - and many of these also lost their fathers. It is estimated that this figure will almost double by the year 2000.

UNAIDS