Key messages

• The HIV and AIDS epidemic is getting worse and poses an enormous challenge for the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is the leading cause of death.
• The disease is also making rapid gains in other parts of the world. By 2010, more people will be infected in Asia than in Africa.

Facts and figures

Today, some 37.8 million are living with HIV. Over 20 million have already died since the first AIDS cases were been identified in 1981.

• 2.9 million died in 2003.
• 4.8 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2003.
• Sub-saharan Africa: 25 million people have HIV. Around 2.2 million people died of AIDS in 2003, and around 3 million people were newly infected.
• North Africa & Middle East: 480,000 people have HIV. Around 24,000 died of AIDS in 2003, and around 75,000 people were newly infected.
• In the hardest hit countries, life expectancy will fall to 30 years of age by 2010. In Botswana, life expectancy has dropped from 65 years in 1990-95 to 40 years today and is set to fall further to just 27 years by 2010.
• 13 million children in Africa have lost at least one parent to AIDS. By 2010 this will rise to an estimated 25 million children.
• In 1999, an estimated 860,000 African children lost their teachers to AIDS.
• Each year, two million women infected with HIV become pregnant and there are 600,000 new cases reported of HIV in children.
• Although the price of anti-retroviral drugs has dropped by up to 98 per cent in the last four years, it still costs between $140 and $300 for a year’s supply of drugs to treat an individual with HIV and the treatment needs to be given for life.

HIV and AIDS fact sheet October 2004.
Department for International Development