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People living with HIV

According to estimates from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 38.6 million adults* and 3.2 million children were living with HIV at the end of 2002. This is more than 50% higher that the figures projected by WHO in 1991 on the basis of the data then available.

Number of people infected during 2001, and the number of deaths

During 2002, some 5 million people became infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. The year also saw 3.1 million deaths from HIV/AIDS - a higher global total than in any year since the beginning of the epidemic, despite antiretroviral therapy which reduced AIDS and AIDS deaths in the richer countries.

Deaths among those already infected will continue to increase for some years even if prevention programmes manage to cut the number of new infections to zero. However, with the HIV-positive population still expanding the annual number of AIDS...