An estimated 4.3 million people contracted the virus that causes AIDS last year, bringing the total number of people in the world living with HIV/AIDS to 39.5 million, according to UNAIDS, the joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS.
Also an estimated 2.9 million individuals died from AIDS in 2006, based on the best available information.
Of the nearly 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS, 2.3 million are children, UNAIDS reported in its global summary of the AIDS epidemic last December. More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981, UNAIDS said, and Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Nearly two-thirds, or 63 percent, of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, UNAIDS said. Of the estimated 24.7 million suffering from the virus in that region, about 2.8 million became infected in 2006 — more than in all other regions of the world combined. The 2.1 million AIDS deaths in sub-Saharan Africa represent 72 percent of global AIDS deaths last year, the U.N. agency said.
Asia
An estimated 8.6 million people were living with HIV in Asia last year, including the 960,000 people who became newly infected, UNAIDS said. About 630,000 individuals died from AIDS-related illnesses, and the number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy increased more than threefold since 2003, reaching an estimated 235,000 by June 2006.
UNAIDS said the latter number represents about 16 percent of the total number of people in need of antiretroviral treatment in Asia and only Thailand has succeeded in providing treatment to at least 50 percent of the people needing it.
Half of the new HIV infections in China in 2005 occurred during unprotected sex, UNAIDS said, and the number of HIV infections in women is growing as the disease spreads from most-at-risk populations to the general population.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia
The number of people living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia rose in 2006, as it had in 2005, to an estimated 1.7 million people, UNAIDS said. New infections surfaced in 270,000 people, marking a twentyfold increase in less than a decade, the agency said.
Almost one-third of newly diagnosed HIV infections in the region were in people 15 to 24 years old. The majority of youth with HIV live in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, which, together, account for about 90 percent of all people living with HIV in the region, UNAIDS reported.
Caribbean
Nearly three-quarters of the 250,000 people living with HIV in the Caribbean are in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but national adult HIV prevalence is high throughout the region with Cuba being the exception.
Overall an estimated 27,000 people became infected with HIV last year in the Caribbean, UNAIDS said, adding that “[a]lthough HIV infection levels have remained stable in the Dominican Republic and have declined in urban parts of Haiti, more localized trends suggest that both countries need to guard against possibly resurgent epidemics.”
About 19,000 people died of AIDS in the Caribbean in 2006, making the disease one of the leading causes of death among adults aged 15 to 44 years.
Latin America
Although the patterns of the HIV epidemics are changing in some Latin American countries, the epidemics in this region overall remain stable, with new HIV infections totaling about 140,000 and 65,000 people dying of AIDS in 2006, UNAIDS said.
Two-thirds of the estimated 1.7 million people living with HIV in Latin America live in the four largest countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, UNAIDS said, and outbreaks of HIV are occurring mainly among injection drug users and homosexual men in South America.
Widespread poverty and migration, insufficient information about epidemic trends outside major urban areas and rampant homophobia are contributing to the spread of HIV in Latin America, UNAIDS said.
North America, Western and Central Europe
Antiretroviral therapy has helped increase the number of people living with HIV in North America and in Western and Central Europe, UNAIDS said. Overall about 2.1 million people were living with AIDS in the two regions in 2006, including 65,000 who acquired HIV last year. Comparatively few people died of AIDS, the agency said, noting that the number was around 30,000 last year.
Worldwide only seven countries are estimated to have more people living with HIV than the United States’ estimate of 1.2 million in 2005, UNAIDS said. In the United States, the most common risk factor for HIV infection remains unsafe sex between homosexual men, the U.N. agency reported. Such transmissions accounted for about 44 percent of HIV or AIDS cases reported from 2001–2004.
Middle East and North Africa
About 68,000 people became infected with HIV in the Middle East and North Africa last year, bringing the total number living with the virus to 460,000.
AIDS killed an estimated 36,000 in the region and most reported infections were in men, UNAIDS said.
The most-at-risk groups in the region are injection drug users, sex workers and homosexual men, and UNAIDS said a lack of adequate HIV reporting makes analyzing the epidemic more challenging there. Data show that localized HIV epidemics exist across the region, while a generalized epidemic persists in Sudan, the agency said.
Oceania
An estimated 7,100 people acquired HIV in Oceania in 2006, bringing the number of people living with the virus to 81,000.
Three-quarters of those people are in Papua New Guinea, where the epidemic is serious, UNAIDS said, adding that “[t]he HIV epidemic in Papua New Guinea continues to expand, amid a plethora of risk factors that could promote further growth unless prevention efforts are stepped up quickly.” (BP)
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