AIDS toll hits 42 Million

AIDS Epidemic Update 2002

A new update on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic was issued this week by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), in advance of the World AIDS Day on December 1.

Injecting drug use is one of the main factors driving AIDS expansion in Asia and Eastern Europe.

Globally, the report finds that 42 million people are now living with HIV, 5 million were newly-infected in 2002, and 3.1 million people were killed by AIDS this year. In sub-Saharan Africa, the epidemic continues to expand. An estimated 3.5 million new infections occurred in 2002, and 2.4 million Africans died of the disease. In Asia, 7.2 million people are now living with HIV.

Epidemic Expanding Rapidly in Asia and Eastern Europe in 2002

The report shows a rapidly expanding epidemic in new areas. The world's fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic is located today in Eastern Europe and the Central Asian Republics. In 2002, there were an estimated 250,000 new infections there, bringing the total for the region to 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In some countries, the epidemic's growth is startling; in Uzbekistan, for example, there were almost as many new infections reported in the first six months of 2002 as in the entire previous decade.

Several countries in Asia and the Pacific, including China, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, may also face huge growth in their epidemics. UNAIDS warns that 11 million more people will acquire HIV in Asia by 2007, unless concerted and effective action is taken to increase access to HIV prevention and care in the region, where the epidemic is still in its early phases.

"We know there is a point in every country's AIDS crisis where the epidemic breaks out from especially vulnerable groups into the wider population," says Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization. "This is a critical moment of opportunity and danger. Unless we see national prevention initiatives championed by the highest level of government, the growth in infections can be unstoppable. We are at this critical moment today in a number of countries in Eastern Europe, central, south and eastern Asia."

Injecting drug use driving AIDS expansion

Injecting drug use is the main mode of HIV transmission in Eastern Europe, as well as in several countries in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

"Unsafe injecting drug use drives very rapid expansion of the epidemic," noted Dr Brundtland, "but it does not take long before the sexual partners of injecting drug users become part of a steadily widening epidemic".

Indonesia, where injecting drug use was virtually unknown ten years ago, is seeing a sharp rise in injecting drug use-and with it, the risk of a major AIDS epidemic. The country now has as many as many as 200,000 injecting drug users-and rates of HIV infection are rocketing among them. Data indicate that up to 50% of injecting drug users in Jakarta may be HIV-positive, compared to 0% in 1998. This route of transmission could account for more than 80% of the country's HIV infections in the year ahead.

The report cites evidence from Brazil that prevention efforts, including drug treatment and needle exchange, can lower HIV prevalence among injecting drug users. But it warns also that such "targeted" interventions alone will not halt the epidemic. More extensive HIV/AIDS programmes that reach the general population are essential.

"It is critical that drug users, and other groups who are particularly vulnerable to infection, gain access to prevention services," said Dr Brundtland. Programmes targeted to these very vulnerable populations, as well as national initiatives that reach in particular young people, must be urgently scaled up.

AIDS Epidemic Update 2002