As the world enters the third decade of the AIDS epidemic, the evidence of
its impact is undeniable. Wherever the epidemic has spread unchecked, it is
robbing countries of the resources and capacities on which human security and
development depend. In some regions, HIV/AIDS, in combination with other
crises, is driving ever-larger parts of nations towards destitution.
The world stood by as HIV/AIDS swept through these countries. It cannot be
allowed to turn a blind eye to an epidemic that continues to expand in some of
the most populous regions and countries of the world.
In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the number of people living with HIV in
2002 stood at 1.2 million. HIV/AIDS is expanding rapidly in the Baltic States,
the Russian Federation and several Central Asian republics.
In Asia and the Pacific, 7.2 million people are now living with HIV. The
growth of the epidemic in this region is largely due to the growing epidemic
in China, where a million people are now living with HIV and where official
estimates foresee a manifold increase in that number over the coming decade.
There remains considerable potential for growth in India, too, where almost 4
million people are living with HIV.
In several countries experiencing the early stages of the epidemic,
significant economic and social changes are giving rise to conditions and
trends that favour the rapid spread of HIV—for example, wide social
disparities, limited access to basic services and increased migration.
Best current projections suggest that an additional 45 million people will
become infected with HIV in 126 low- and middle-income countries (currently
with concentrated or generalized epidemics) between 2002 and 2010—unless the
world succeeds in mounting a drastically expanded, global prevention effort.
More than 40% of those infections would occur in Asia and the Pacific
(currently accounts for about 20% of new annual infections).
Such outcomes can be avoided. Implementation of a full prevention package
by 2005 could cut the number of new infections by 29 million by 2010. It could
also help achieve the target of reducing HIV prevalence levels among young
people by 25% by 2010 (as set in the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS,
which the world’s governments adopted in June 2001). But any delay in
implementing a full prevention package will slash the potential gains.
Responses that involve and treat young people as a priority pay off, as
evidence from Ethiopia, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia shows. HIV prevalence
levels among young women in Addis Ababa declined by more than one-third
between 1995 and 2001. Among pregnant teenagers in South Africa, HIV
prevalence levels shrank a quarter between 1998 and 2001. Prevalence remains
unacceptably high, but these positive trends confirm the value of investing in
responses among the young.
The future trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic depends on whether
the world can protect young people everywhere against the epidemic and its
aftermath.
Just as certain sectors of society are at particular risk of HIV infection,
certain conditions favour the epidemic’s growth. As the current food
emergencies in southern Africa show, the AIDS epidemic is increasingly
entangled with wider humanitarian crises. The risk of HIV spread often
increases when desperation takes hold and communities are wrenched apart. At
the same time, the ability to stall the epidemic’s growth also suffers, as
does the capacity to provide adequate treatment, care and support.
It is vital that HIV/AIDS-related activities become an integral part of
wider-ranging efforts to prevent and overcome humanitarian crises, as this
publication shows. (see ‘HIV/AIDS and humanitarian crises’).
Source: UNAIDS 2002 Update
