ABSTRACT
The disease has greatly affected the globe, with sub-Saharan Africa and southern Africa in particular being the most affected. The 2010 Report of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the Global AIDS Epidemic notes that subSaharan Africa is more heavily affected by HIV and AIDS than any other region of the world, with an estimated 22.9 million people living with HIV in the region – around two thirds of the global total. In 2010, around 1.2 million people died from AIDS in subSaharan Africa and 1.9 million people became infected with HIV. Southern Africa is still the most severely affected region, with an estimated 11.3 million people living with HIV in the region in 2009, nearly one third (31%) more than the 8.6 million a decade earlier. Globally, 34% of people living with HIV, 31% of new HIV infections, and 34% of all AIDS-related deaths in 2009 occurred in the ten countries of southern Africa (UNAIDS 2010, 28).
