ABSTRACT

Recent estimates show that infection with HIV, which causes AIDS, is far more common in the world than was previously thought. UNAIDS (the United Nations agency that coordinates activities to combat the epidemic) and the WHO (the World Health Organisation) estimate that over 30 million people were living with HIV infection at the end of 1997. That is one in every 100 adults in the ‘sexually active’ age group 15 to 50 years worldwide. Included in this 30 million are 1.1 million children under the age of 15. Theoverwhelming majority of HIV-infected people —more than 90 per cent—live in the developing world. Most of these do not know that they are infected. Table 39.1 shows the global situation at the end of 1997.