Today is World AIDS Day. The 24th World AIDS Day, to be exact. Let’s take a look at some sobering statistics, shall we?
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), as of January 2010, an estimated 34 million people were living with HIV worldwide, up 17% from 2001. This number reflects both an increase in the number of infections and a reduction in AIDS-related deaths due to increased access to effective antiretroviral therapy. UNAIDS also reports that the number of people dying of AIDS-related causes fell to 1.8 million in 2010, down from a peak of 2.2 million in the mid-2000s. Promisingly, approximately 2.5 million deaths were prevented in low- and middle-income countries since 1995 due to the introduction of antiretroviral therapy. Much of that success has come in the past two years when rapid scale-up of access to treatment occurred; in 2010 alone, 700,000 AIDS-related deaths were averted. Continue reading