AIDS Link

 

AIDS Epidemic Update 2002

WHO has released on 26 November, in collaboration with UNAIDS, the AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2002 with estimates based on the most recent available data on the spread of HIV in countries around the world.

There are 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS world-wide. 38.6 million of these are adults, 19.2 million are women and 3.2 million are children under the age of 15. Five million new infections with HIV occured in 2002 of which 4.2 million were adults and 2 million of them were women. A total of 3.1 million people died of HIV/AIDS related causes in 2002.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of HIV positive individuals (29.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS) followed by South and South-East Asia (6 million). In North America there are 980,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, 570,000 in Western Europe and 1.2 million in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The number of HIV positive individuals in Australia and New Zealand has remained constant since 2001 (15,000 people). In Latin America and the Caribbean the figure is 1.5 million and 440,000 respectively. East Asia and the Pacific have 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS. North Africa and the Middle East have 550,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.