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The number of people living with HIV is on the rise. On World Aids Day Nathalie Towner looks at the global impact of the disease
Fighting Aids
An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide including
2.5 million children under the age of 15. The disease remains incurable
and many of its victims do not have access to the drugs that can keep
them alive.
Their suffering is often made worse by the stigma and discrimination
they have to endure. This is why the theme of today’s 2003 World
Aids Day is ‘live and let live’.
World Aids Day is not just about raising funds but also about educating
people about the disease and helping fight prejudice.
In many countries round the world people known to have HIV have difficulties
finding work and are rejected by their communities.
As a result potentially live saving treatment is not always sought or
even offered to those who desperately need it.
And the number of people infected with HIV is on the rise - a report
released ahead of World Aids Day revealed that a record number of people
contracted HIV around the world this year.
Figures from the joint united nations programme and the world health
organisation (WHO) put the number of new infections at five million with
three million people dead as a result of AIDS this year.
Africa remains the hardest hit with one in five adults across southern
Africa now living with HIV/Aids, the highest rate since the beginning
of the epidemic. While infection rates across sub-Saharan Africa vary
widely, from less than 1% in Mauritania to almost 39% in Botswana and
Swaziland, the breadth of the epidemic indicates that HIV/Aids now has
a firm hold on most countries in the region.
The almost complete absence of large-scale HIV prevention or antiretroviral
treatment programmes means that in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa
high levels of Aids mortality now match the high rates of new infections.
Peter Piot, UNAids executive director, believes that despite the success
of certain initiatives nowhere near enough is being done.
“It is quite clear that our current global efforts remain entirely
inadequate for an epidemic that is continuing to spiral out of control,”
he said.
“AIDS is tightening its grip on southern Africa and threatening
other regions of the world.”
South Africa is the hardest hit country in the world with an estimated
5.3 million people infected with HIV at the end of 2002 and Piot warns
that the most devastating social and economic impacts of AIDS are still
to come.
“Widespread treatment access would substantially mitigate the devastating
impact of HIV/Aids, which affects everything from agriculture to national
defence. Effective HIV prevention programmes must be scaled up dramatically
if we want a realistic chance at reducing the number of new infections.”
Worldwide figures for infection could rise sharply in the future, with
eastern Europe and central Asia on the verge of epidemics.
The increase in these regions is predominantly down to HIV transmission
through injecting drugs and unsafe sex.
In an effort to scale up treatment the World Health Organisation has
today unveiled a comprehensive global strategy to bring antiretroviral
treatment to 3 million people in the world’s poorest countries by
2005.
Dr Lee Jong-Wook, director general of the WHO, said that more money will
be needed if the scheme is to make a real impact.
“This represents an unprecedented drive to increase the number of
people receiving treatment,” he said.
“For ‘3 x 5’ to succeed, however, and for treatment access
to increase further in the future the international community must continue
to increase its financial and logistical support.”
Victims of HIV in high-income countries such as the UK are needless to
say far more fortunate and the number of annual HIV deaths in these countries
has continued to slow due to the widespread availability of antiretroviral
treatment.
But there is no room for complacency. HIV is a global epidemic and the recent statistics are of concern to us all.
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KEY FACTS ON HIV/AIDS AIDS is set to reverse 50 years of development gains in the most affected countries. The economic impact of the disease can be seen in its effect on life expectancy and productivity of the workforce, tax revenues and overall loss of GDP. HIV is still a challenge in industrialised
countries. Complacency over the availability of life-prolonging
treatment threatens to erode safe sexual behaviour among gay men.
However there remains no cure for HIV and AIDS. Source: |
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