January 1999 Cover
|
 |
HIV infections up ten percent in 1998
Every minute last year, about 11 people around the world were infected with HIV, some 5.8 million in all. Half those new infections were among young people, 15 to
24 years old. In 1998, the number of those living with HIV increased worldwide ten percent, to around 33,400,000 persons. So estimates the United Nations Program
on HIV/AIDS in its state-of-the-epidemic report issued for World AIDS Day, December 1.
The epidemic's center of gravity remains Africa south of the Sahara desert. Four million of last year's new infections occurred there, the UN says. Every day
this region saw some 5,500 funerals for people dead from AIDS. In four countries in this area, from 20 to 26 percent of the adult population tests positive for HIV.
New treatments, & new infections
In North America and Western Europe, death rates from AIDS are down sharply thanks to new drugs, whose price makes them unavailable in poor countries. In
the US, for example, AIDS deaths fell by two-thirds between 1995 and 1997. But the rate of new infections in this region-- around 75,000 in 1998 the UN estimates--
has remained constant for the past decade.
In Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, the epidemic is gaining new footholds after a late start, spreading out of specific populations and into rural areas.
In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, for example, out of a population of 25 million, 500,000 people are estimated to be HIV-infected, with the infection rate
three times higher in villages than in cities.
In Latin America, the epidemic remains concentrated among men who have sex with men and drug injectors. But, in a familiar pattern, HIV transmission
occurs increasingly through sex between men and women.
From a bird's eye's view, the AIDS epidemic droned on in 1998.
You are not logged in.
No comments yet, but
click here to be the first to comment on this
News Slant!
|
