UNAIDS recently announced that the number of new HIV infections each year in the world has fallen by one-third since 2001.
This success story is a direct result of many countries putting their efforts and funding into HIV prevention and treatment. Antiretroviral drugs, developed in 1996, became widely available in the middle of the last decade and have had an amazing impact on the death rate from acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
However welcome this news, we cannot become complacent. In 2012, 2.3 million people worldwide became infected with HIV. We have yet to reach the global tipping point where the number of new infections is less than the number of infected people started on HIV treatment.
In sub-Saharan Africa where the epidemic is worst, about 470,000 children die each year from AIDS. Most of them contract HIV from their mothers during birth or via breast milk, and half of the children infected die before they reach two years in age. The reasons for these sad statistics are many, with poverty, gender inequality and lack of access to medicines being some of the most important.
Jenny Neal
The Star Phoenix
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