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Statistics everyone should know
 Key facts and figures about the disease that has killed 18.8 million people since the beginning of the epidemic. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) was first reported in 1981 among homosexual men in the United States. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS was identified by 1983. AIDS is the fourth leading global cause of death, according to UNAIDS. At the end of 1999, 34.3 million adults and children worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS. More than five million people are newly infected each year. 24.5 million people are living with the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, 5.6 million in South/Southeast Asia, 1.3 million in Latin America, 900,000 in North America and 520,000 in Western Europe. Worldwide, 54 percent of people with the HIV virus are men but women are contracting it at a faster rate. In Africa, 20 percent more women than men are living with HIV. There are now 16 countries in which more than one-tenth of the adult population aged 15-49 is infected with HIV. In seven countries, all in the southern part of the African continent, at least one adult in five is living with the virus. So far, the AIDS epidemic has left behind 13.2 million orphans — children 15 years old or younger who have lost one or both parents to the disease. At least one of every two 15-year-old boys in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana is on track to die of AIDS. With a total of 4.2 million infected people, South Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. In Botswana, 35.8 percent of adults are now infected with HIV. AIDS is a syndrome, a combination of illnesses. The HIV virus attacks the immune system and leaves the body vulnerable to a variety of life-threatening diseases, so-called opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis. | |
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