HIV/AIDS in sub-saharan: an overview

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the worst affected region in the world (Annex- Table 1) An estimated 28.1 million Africans were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2001 Among them an estimated 2 4 million children under 15 years were living with HIV/AIDS, largely due to mother-to-child transmission. Since the beginning of the epidemic and by the end of 2001 a cumulative 19 million people have already died of AIDS - over three times the number of AIDS deaths m the rest of the world. Moreover, on the continent in 2001, two million more women than men carry HIV and some 13 million children have lost their mother or both parents to the epidemic. Uganda remains the only African country to have turned a major epidemic around its extraordinary effort of national mobilization pushed the adult HIV prevalence rate down from around 14% in the early 1990s to 8% in 2000. HIV prevalence in pregnant women in urban areas has fallen for eight years in a row, from a high of 29.5% in 1992 to 11 3% in 2000