AIDS in the world

By the mid 1980s it was clear that the recently discovered HIV had spread to all parts of the world and produced a pandemic. An estimated 7500 persons nearly half of them women become infected every day. By late 1995 an estimated 20.1 million adults were seropositive and some 30-40 million persons may be infected by the year 2000. Over 6 million cases of AIDS have occurred and the number is expected to triple by 2000. 75-85% of infections were sexually transmitted and most of the rest were transmitted through transfusions sharing of contaminated needles by IV drug users or perinatally. Fewer than 0.01% were accidentally contracted by health workers. Most cases at present occur in the developing areas of Africa Asia Latin America and recently the independent states of the former Soviet Union. Sub-Saharan Africa with less than 10% of the worlds population contains over 70% of HIV-seropositive persons and over two-thirds of AIDS cases. Some 12.9 million adults and 1 million children have been infected by HIV and nearly 3 million have died of AIDS. Most infections were acquired through heterosexual relations and more women than men are seropositive. AIDS is spreading rapidly and silently in Asia especially in Southeast Asia. The number infected rose from 500000 in 1991 to 3.5 million by 1994. The World Health Organization estimates that the number of new cases will surpass those in Africa reaching a cumulative total of 55 million by 2020. 1.4 million persons will have developed AIDS by 2000. Heterosexual transmission has replaced transmission in homosexual men or IV drug users as the principal route. Heterosexual transmission is also gaining importance in Latin America and the Caribbean which contain 11.5% of seropositive persons. 1.2 million persons in North America and Western Europe are seropositive. Prevalence rates may be stabilizing in a few European countries. Some 25000 seropositive persons live in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Although the numbers are low the conditions are present for rapid dissemination. The responses of individual countries in the next decade will determine the future course of the pandemic.