One Big Charity Organization

- By the end of 2005, 40.3 million people were living with HIV/AIDS, including 17.5 million women

and 2.3 million children under the age of 15.

- In 2005 alone, a total of 3.1 million people died of HIV/AIDS-related causes

- World-wide, only one in ten persons infected with HIV has been tested and knows his/her HIV status.
- Ninety-six percent of people with HIV live in the developing world, most in sub-Saharan Africa. The epidemic continues to grow in this region, with nearly a million new infections between 2003 and 2005.

- In some African countries, three quarters of those infected are women - many of whom have not had more than one sexual partner.
- An estimated 5 to 6 million people in low- and middle-income countries will die in the next two years if they do not receive antiretroviral treatment (ART). At the end of 2005, only one in seven Asians and one in ten Africans who need ART were receiving it.
- In six African countries, (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe), more than one in five of all pregnant women have HIV/AIDS. In Swaziland, nearly 40% of pregnant women are HIV-positive.
- Without prevention efforts, 35% of children born to an HIV positive mother will become infected with HIV. At least a quarter of newborns infected with HIV die before age one, and up to 60% will die before reaching their second birthdays.
- Injecting drug use and commercial sex work are fueling the epidemic across Asia and Eastern Europe, and few countries are sufficiently reaching out to these marginalized groups or addressing the poverty that often underlies these behaviors.
- Discrimination against vulnerable groups is evident in the Russian Federation, where more than 90% of the estimated one million people living with HIV were infected through injecting drug use, but represent only 13% of those receiving antiretroviral therapy.

There are several ways that HIV can enter a body. Here are some:

- Blood transfusion from someone who has HIV.

- Child birth when the mother is HIV positive.

- Intercourse

- Sharing needles with people infected with HIV.

- A number of drugs such as Nevirapine are clinically proven to significantly reduce mother-to-child transmission when given to pregnant mothers and children shortly after birth.

- The National AIDS Program of Brazil has successfully offered universal access to treatment while conducting an aggressive HIV prevention campaign. In May 2003, the program was presented with the $1 million Gates Award for Global Health at the Global Health Conference. Treatment coverage is also now over 80% in Argentina, Chile and Cuba.

- The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, founded in 2001, illustrates a growing international commitment to address the pandemic, even though it remains well short of the $7-10 billion annual budget recommended by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. See www.theglobalfund.org/en/ for more information.

- The U.S. government's commitment of $15 billion dollars over five years (2004-8) has great promise to make a substantial contribution if fully funded. For more information, see www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/hivaids.

Special Thanks to:

http://globalhealth.org/view_top.php3?id=227  

http://en.wikipedia.org/