DISCUSS ANYTHING & EVERYTHING: Money, Dating, Health, Internet, Legal, Jobs, People, Places and more

Now we know from bitter experience that HIV is the cause of AIDS and that it can devastate families, communities and whole countries. We have seen the epidemic knock decades off countries' national development, widen the gulf between rich and poor nations and push already stigmatized groups closer to the margins of society. We are living in an 'international' society, and HIV has become the first truly 'international' epidemic, easily crossing oceans and borders.

However, experience has also shown us that the right approaches, applied quickly enough with courage and resolve, can and do result in lower national HIV infection rates and less suffering for those affected by the epidemic. We have learned that if a country acts early enough, a national HIV crisis can be averted.
It is in Africa, in some of the poorest countries in the world, that the impact of HIV has been most severe. At the end of 2011, there were 9 countries in Africa where more than one tenth of the adult population aged 15-49 was infected with HIV.3
A mural in Ghana challenging HIV-related stigma A mural in Ghana challenging HIV-related stigma

Countries that are most affected by HIV and AIDS in Africa fall within sub-Saharan Africa. Rates of HIV infection are still extremely high in sub-Saharan Africa, and an estimated 1.8 million people in this region became newly infected in 2011.4 This means that there are now an estimated 23.5 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. In this part of the world women are disproportionately at risk, accounting for 58 percent of all people living with HIV in the region.5 As the number of people living with HIV in the general population rises, the same patterns of ***ual risk result in more new infections, simply because the chances of encountering an infected partner become higher.

Whilst the number of people living with HIV remains high in sub-Saharan Africa, rapid scale up of antiretroviral treatment has been associated with a significant decline in the number of new HIV infections across this region.6 In 2011, the number of new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa was 25 percent lower than in 2001. Particularly steep declines in HIV incidence were reported in 23 sub-Saharan countries.7 More than half of people in need of antiretroviral therapy are now accessing it in sub-Saharan Africa; with an increasing number of countries achieving or nearing the universal access target of delivering HIV treatment to 80 percent of eligible people.8