More than three-quarters of Aids-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa — and South Africa is now officially the country with the highest prevalence of HIV in the world, says a new United Nations report released on Wednesday.
Improved monitoring of the pandemic has led the UN to revise its estimates, particularly in Southern Africa and Asia, resulting in a major revision in the assessment of India’s epidemic, the country previously thought to be worst-hit.
”South Africa is the country with the largest number of HIV infections in the world,” reads the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids annual report on the epidemic for 2007.
While the report does not give a figure, the South African government currently estimates about 5,5-million of the country’s 48-million people are living with the disease.
While Aids continues to be the leading cause of death in Africa, sub-Saharan Africa is the worst-affected region.
”More than two out of three (68%) adults and nearly 90% of children infected with HIV live in this region, and more than three in four (76%) Aids deaths in 2007 occurred there, illustrating the unmet need for antiretroviral treatment in Africa.”
Women in the region bear the brunt of the disease. ”Unlike other regions, the majority of people (61%) living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women,” the report finds.
”It is estimated that 1,7-million people were newly infected with HIV in 2007, bringing to 22,5-million the total number of people living with the virus” that causes Aids.
Southern Africa is the worst affected in the region with national adult HIV prevalence over 15% in eight countries.
”While there is evidence of a significant decline in the national HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe, the epidemics in most of the rest of the subregion have either reached or are approaching a plateau,” says the report.
The UN data shows that adult HIV prevalence is either stable or has started to decline in many parts of Africa.
According to the report, Kenya and Zimbabwe are some of the countries where the slowing trend of new infections is most evident, with similar shifts in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali.
Worldwide, new infections of Aids are levelling off, and of the 2,5-million people newly infected overall, more than half come from sub-Saharan Africa. — Sapa-AFP