Thread: Record 34m living with HIV - UN report

Record 34m living with HIV - UN report
November 21, 2011

A SIGNIFICANT expansion in access to treatment helped slash the number of AIDS-related deaths in 2010, bringing the number of people living with HIV to a record 34 million, the United Nations said.

"We are on the verge of a significant breakthrough in the AIDS response," said Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS.

"New HIV infections continue to fall and more people than ever are starting treatment."

About half of those eligible for treatment are now receiving it, with the most dramatic improvement in access seen in sub-Saharan Africa, which recorded a 20 per cent jump in people undergoing treatment between 2009 and 2010.

As a result of better access to healthcare, the number of AIDS-related deaths were also falling, said UNAIDS, the UN agency spearheading the international campaign against the disease.

In 2010, 1.8 million deaths were linked to AIDS, down from a peak of 2.2 million last seen in 2006.

"An estimated 700,000 AIDS-related deaths were estimated to have been averted in 2010 alone," added the UN agency.

Not only is treatment helping to prevent new AIDS-related deaths but it is also contributing to a drop in new HIV infections.

Patients undergoing care were less likely to infect others, as prevention programs coupled with treatments were proving effective.

Modelling data suggests that "the number of new HIV infections is 30 to 50 per cent lower now than it would have been in the absence of universal access to treatment for eligible people living with HIV."

In Namibia for instance, where treatment access reached an all-time high of 90 per cent and condom use rose to 75 per cent among men, the combined impact contributed to a 60 per cent drop in new infections by 2010, noted UNAIDS.

The UN agency added that the full preventive impact of treatment was likely to be seen in the next five years, as more countries reach high levels of treatment coverage.

"The massive increases in the numbers of people receiving treatment in South Africa between 2009 and 2010, for example, are likely to be reflected in substantially fewer new infections in the near future," it said.

UNAIDS assessed that even if the AIDS epidemic is not over, "the end may be in sight if countries invest smartly."

"In the next five years, smart investments can propel the AIDS response towards achieving the vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths," it said.

However, the turning point is coming at a time when industrialised nations' public budgets are being squeezed and translating to less international funding for the AIDS response.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres urged governments to keep up their funding.

"Never, in more than a decade of treating people living with HIV/AIDS, have we been at such a promising moment to really turn this epidemic around," said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, who heads MSF's access campaign.

"Governments in some of the hardest hit countries want to act on the science, seize this moment and reverse the AIDS epidemic. But this means nothing if there's no money to make it happen."

heraldsun.com.au

FACTBOX-Latest global HIV/AIDS numbers

Nov 21 (Reuters) - Here is the latest global and regional picture on HIV and AIDS from a report by the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) released on Monday.

For a UNAIDS graphic on people living with HIV click on link.reuters.com/kag25s

For a UNAIDS graphic on new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths click on link.reuters.com/mag25s

THE GLOBAL PICTURE:

* An estimated 34 million people worldwide had the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS in 2010, according to the latest UNAIDS data. This number is up 17 percent on 2001, when 28.6 million were living with HIV.

* There were 2.7 million new HIV infections in 2010, including an estimated 390,000 among children.

* The proportion of women with HIV remained stable in 2010 at 50 percent of all those with the virus, but in sub-Saharan Africa, women account for 59 percent of people living with HIV.

* An estimated 1.8 million people died of AIDS-related causes in 2010.

REGIONAL BREAKDOWN

AFRICA:

* Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region hardest hit by HIV, with 22.9 million HIV-positive people in 2010 -- about 68 percent of the global total.

* The number of new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa has dropped by more than 26 percent, to 1.9 million in 2010, down from an estimated 2.6 million in 1997.

* South Africa has more people with HIV than any other country in the world -- an estimated 5.6 million cases.

* There were 1.2 million AIDS-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2010.

* AIDS has killed at least a million people each year in the region since 1998.

ASIA:

* Although rates of HIV are lower in Asia than in some other regions, the size of the Asian population means it has the second largest group of people living with HIV.

* There are 4 million people living with HIV in South and South East Asia, and there were 270,000 new infections in the region and 250,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2010,

* Since the epidemic's peak in 1996, there has been a 40 percent decline in new HIV infections in this region.

* In East Asia, 790,000 people have HIV. There were 56,000 AIDS related deaths in 2010. In this region, there has been an increase in new HIV infections to 88,000 in 2010 from 74,000 in 2001.

EASTERN EUROPE & CENTRAL ASIA:

* Since 2001, the number of people living with HIV in this region has increased to 1.5 million in 2010 from 410,000 in 2001.

* Russia and Ukraine account for nearly 90 percent of the regional epidemic.

* In 2010, an estimated 90,000 adults and children died of AIDS, up from 7,800 in 2001. Injecting drug use remains the leading cause of HIV infection in this region.

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA:

* There are 470,000 adults and children with HIV in 2010 in this region, up from 320,000 in 2001. New infections also rose to 59,000 in 2010 from 43,000 in 2001, and deaths from AIDS increased to 35,000 in 2010 from 22,000 in 2001.

SOURCES: UNAIDS/Reuters (Compiled by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit, editing by Kate Kelland)

af.reuters.com

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region hardest hit by HIV, with 22.9 million HIV-positive people in 2010 -- about 68 percent of the global total.

That's quite a statistic, and shows they're just running around shagging anyone in sight.

^ Here's another scary stat:

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
25.9% (2009 est.)
country comparison to the world: 1

From the CIA world factbook for Swaziland, methinks there isnt going to be anyone left there within a few years. Excellent resource BTW.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...orld-factbook/

^Its very scary when you translate that in to orphans and sick people need in care

Is ther any relationship between HIV and AIDS?
Just wondering like.

^I was wondering where guyinthailand was too I won't had thought he could resist sharing some of his perils of paste with us.

I suppose I shouldn't have written this post, because he told me I should be careful what I wish for

This film, is a rather sad reflection of the state of aids denilaism; which has now reached the heights of the flat earth society and creationism in terms of its delusional thinking in the face of reality.

This film is simply based on the old dated quotes that you so love to post from 20 years ago, that religiously ignore the rather inconvenient results of the last 20 years of research in to hiv and aids. rather like you they seem to have no trouble simultaneously believing that hiv does and does not exist.

Its rather sad that one of their star healthy and cheerful interviewees, christine maggoire died 6 months before the film was released of causes often found in people suffering from hiv and aids..... that is unless they are hiv deniers. The film make obviously didn't think this was important or an issue as the death is the very last credit at the end of the film. Its the only time I've seen this done, normally its mentioned at the start of the credits if not earlier; kind of says a lot about the film really.

Go on guy in thailand, answer the question. do you believe that hiv exists, that hiv exists or that it simultaneously exists and does not exist. I'm just dying to hear.

the fact that there are folks of the mind set of guyinthailand is sad , extremely sad

^and unlike most of the other crazies out there, this lot cause people to die, unnecessarily

It's a shame this disease doesn't kill more quickly, it's a massive drain on medical resources that could probably be better used on people more deserving than a bunch of irresponsible shit stabbers.

^From a teabuggerer™ point of view he makes perfect sense. Its all about taking personal responsibility for your actions and not expecting the state, society or your fellow insurance company customers to bail you out. If you take this thought process to its logical conclusion the world would be a better place and medical costs would be radically reduced.

Aids victims, just like the victims of other cronic and expensive medical conditions such as diabetes, lung cancer, thalassaemia, parkinsons and just about every genetic and life style disease represent a huge burden on the medical insurance companies and government health schemes.

These conditions are can be easily avoided with testing, condoms, avoiding unhealthy life styles etc. So why waste money on prolonging the inevitable, just let them die.
I suppose some of the more liberal tea party bridge might suggest that it would be unfair to leave them to suffer the slow natural death they have asked for, and euthanasia would be a kindness. there are even sone nice easy cheap designs in the german archives for converting lorries for this very purpose.

I'm rather proud of my relatives who died to ensure that whilst people are allowed to believe in this shit, in europe at leased, they will never be allowed to have any political power.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

It's a shame this disease doesn't kill more quickly, it's a massive drain on medical resources that could probably be better used on people more deserving than a bunch of irresponsible shit stabbers.

and when one of your relatives has the misfortune to be an innocent victim ......

nasty piece of work are you

Well for fuck's sake, I make perfectly reasonable arguments against squandering health care resources on homosexuals getting infected through high risk, irresponsible anal sex, and they get cut to show the caring little wanky remarks from Mid.

Fuck you.

Did you know that studies in the 1990's showed that as effective HIV drugs came onto the market, the prevalence of homosexuals indulging in high risk, unprotected anal sex increased?

I'll repeat: It is a tragic waste of money treating people whose infections could have been avoided by the simple practice of safe buggery. And if these infected people gave the disease to a sexual partner without warning them, they should be jailed for life.

Why HIV Infection Rates Are On the Rise

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2011) — Since HIV infection rates began to rise again around 2000, researchers have been grasping for answers on what could be causing this change, especially in the homosexual community. The rising numbers are a stark contrast to the 1990's, when infection rates dropped due to increased awareness of the virus. A new study in Israel reveals that the number of new HIV cases diagnosed each year in the last decade saw a startling increase of almost 500% compared to the previous decade, and similar trends have been reported in a number of other developed nations, including the U.S.


According to Prof. Zehava Grossman of Tel Aviv University's School of Public Health at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Central Virology Laboratory of the Ministry of Health, a new approach to studying HIV transmission within a community has yielded a disturbing result. By cross-referencing several databases and performing a molecular analysis of the virus found in patients, an astonishingly high number of newly-diagnosed men with male sexual partners were found to have contracted the virus from infected, medicated partners who are already aware of their HIV-positive status.

Reported in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, these findings indicate that the public health approach towards HIV counselling and education needs to be reconsidered, Prof. Grossman says.


Bypassing the questionnaires
Researchers had begun to suspect that the rise in infection rates was due to a change in social behavior, but hard evidence was lacking. The answers, Prof. Grossman says, were not easy to find by asking the patients themselves. Questionnaires and similar methods to gather information are hard to interpret because, in addition to the difficulty of recruiting an accurate cross-section of the population, people are often unwilling to be frank about risky sexual behavior.


To unravel the mystery, Prof. Grossman and her colleagues at the Central Virology Laboratory directed by Prof. Ella Mendelson and Israel's leading AIDS clinicians turned to the virus itself. Working with senior epidemiologists of the Public Health Services of Israel's Ministry of Health, they conducted a comprehensive analysis of laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological data, including information about patients' diagnosis and treatment, sexually transmitted diseases contracted along with HIV, and the molecular characteristics of the virus in different patients.


Prof. Grossman and her colleagues found that an overwhelming number of new cases were infected with HIV strains that had already developed resistance to existing HIV drug therapies. Because the virus can only become resistant if previously exposed to medication, this result indicates that new patients are often infected by an HIV-positive partner already receiving the therapies. More often than in the past, HIV found in different patients could be traced back to a common source.


Changing the educational approach
While people are now more knowledgeable about the virus and aware of the risks of unprotected sex, it appears that an increasing number of homosexual men, including those who are infected and treated for HIV, are likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour. Public health authorities, educators, and activists should be encouraged to find new ways of changing this attitude and of better imprinting the message about the risk and consequences of HIV transmission, particularly within the gay community.
Clearly, Prof. Grossman warns, the need to establish the values of safe sex within at-risk populations is as imperative as it has ever been.