U.N. says AIDS spreading unchecked

[rodeodance]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-05-30-un-aids-report_x.htm

U.N. says AIDS spreading unchecked
Updated 5/30/2006 5:31 PM ET

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — India now has the largest number of AIDS infections as the spread of the disease shows no sign of letting up a quarter-century into an epidemic that has claimed 25 million lives, the U.N. reported Tuesday.

"I think we will see a further globalization of the epidemic spreading to every single corner of the planet," UNAIDS head Peter Piot told The Associated Press in an interview.

The data released by UNAIDS shows that India now has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS. With an estimated 5.7 million infections, it has surpassed South Africa's 5.5 million.

But the epidemic still remains at its worst in sub-Saharan Africa, where per capita rates continue to climb in several countries. A third of adults were infected in Swaziland in 2005. By comparison, India's per capita rate is low, at 0.9% of its 1.02 billion people.

[rodeodance]

1. Nearly 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.

Nearly 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.

"It won't go away one fine day, and then we wake up and say, 'Oh, AIDS is gone,'" Piot told the AP in a recent telephone interview from Geneva.

He said one of the report's most disturbing findings was how few babies are being protected against infection. Only 9% of pregnant women in poor countries are receiving services, such as access to drugs, to help prevent mother-to-child transmission, despite a UNAIDS goal of 80% coverage.

"The thing I'm most disappointed with and surprised about is prevention of mother-to-child transmission," Piot said. "For HIV, the coverage is still very low and we didn't meet the target. "Here we have something that is non-controversial; it's about saving the babies."

Women's vulnerability to the disease continues to increase, with more than 17 million women infected worldwide — nearly half the global total — and more than three-quarters of them living in sub-Saharan Africa, the report found.

[oscar111]

2. Globalism's shreddng of funds for public health may explain

the lack of access to drugs by the poor... much as right here in the usa.

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. The vast majority of these people are heterosexual

Sorry, but I felt the need to remind people of that. One of the biggest excuses I've seen for not working to find a cure is the delusion that HIV disease somehow only strikes gay men and other "sinners."

[leesa]

4. Didn't the UN just say a day or two ago that AIDS was slowing down??

[Igel]

5. And both are right.

There is a way of looking it at to satisfy both constraints; they're not opposed to each other. I think they're quoting from the same report, even.

The infection rate has decreased. But that still means each year there are more people infected. But llittle is being done to (successfully) stop its spread to new areas or groups, and in some countries the infection rate is increasing. (It's all in how you calculate the rates: if you calculate them globally, they're decreasing; if you calculate them country by country, many are increasing.)

[greyl]

10. 5 million new cases every year

is the figure stated on a PBS show the other night.

[bemildred]

6. This was in the LA Times too.

The Times spin was that AIDS is "slowing worldwide". I found it interesting that China was not mentioned, or Russia.

[TriSec]

7. AIDS pandemic spreading to "every corner of the Globe"

From Guardian UK, via Common Dreams:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0531-05.htm

Twenty five years after the first Aids cases were reported, there is no sign of a halt to the pandemic which is likely to spread to every corner of the globe, the head of the United Nations' Aids agency has said.

Peter Piot was speaking as UNAids released a report which declares that the world's response to the disease that has infected about 65 million people and killed 25 million has been nowhere near adequate.

Five years after a special UN session pledged its commitment to halting the Aids pandemic, only a few countries have met the targets laid down.

"I think we will see a further globalisation of the epidemic spreading to every single corner of the planet," said Dr Piot. "It won't go away one fine day, and then we wake up and say, 'Oh, Aids is gone'. I think we have to start thinking about looking at the next generations. There's an increasing diversity in how the epidemic looks."

India has the largest number of people living with the virus. With 5.7m infections, it has overtaken South Africa's total of 5.5m. But the epidemic is still at its worst in sub-Saharan Africa, where 90% of the world's HIV-infected children live.

One in three pregnant women in South Africa tested HIV-positive in public antenatal clinics in 2004.

"I think in Africa, it is only comparable in demographic terms to the slave trade regarding the impact it has had on the population," Dr Piot said. "In southern Africa, HIV prevalence continues to go up, and they're already the world record."


Continued...

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

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[greyl]

9. It's already in every country on Earth.

Weak headline.