«We live in a completely interdependent world, which simply means we cannot escape each other. How we respond to AIDS depends, in part, on whether we understand this interdependence. It is not someone else’s problem. This is everybody’s problem.»
[Bill Clinton]
The Facts about HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS, the most devastating global epidemic ever, is a human and developmental drama. In the year 2002 alone, five million more people were infected with HIV. Over 42 million people, or more than the population of Poland already live with HIV/AIDS, 46% of them women, 46% men and 8% children of 0-14 years of age. Another 21.8 million people, a number equal to the population of Romania have died, 41% women, 39% men and 20% children.
- Nearly 34 million people currently live with HIV/AIDS. In 2011, there were 2.5 million new HIV infections and 1.7 million HIV-related deaths.
- The HIV/AIDS pandemic is everywhere : Sub-Saharan Africa is most severely affected with 22.5 million HIV-positive adults and children. South Asia and South-East Asia follow with 4.0 million infected. These regions have high levels of poverty and low access to the water supply and sanitation services critically needed to prevent and treat disease.
- HIV and AIDS affect people in their most productive periods, depriving families, society, and nations of resources that could be generated by the productivity of the affected people.