SA's Aids pandemic shows no evidence of declining

HIV/Aids infection levels have increased dramatically across Central Asia

The Joint United Nations Programme on Aids (UNAids) report on the global Aids epidemic released yesterday says Africa remains the global epicentre of the Aids pandemic - and South Africa's Aids epidemic shows no evidence of a decline.

The report says almost two thirds of the 38.6 million people in the world living with HIV are found in Africa, south of the Sahara and that HIV prevalence levels are exceptionally high in southern Africa, with South Africa's epidemic one of the worst in the world.

An estimated 5.5 million people in South Africa are living with HIV - making South Africa the country with the highest number of HIV positive people in Africa, followed by Nigeria (2.9 million), Mozambique (1.8 million) and Zimbabwe (1.7 million). India is the country with the highest number of people living with HIV in the world (5.7 million).

Swaziland the highest adult HIV carriers globally
However, as a percentage of the adult population, the picture looks different: Swaziland has the highest percentage of adult HIV carriers in the world with 33.4%, followed by Botswana with 24.1%, Lesotho 23.2%, Zimbabwe 20.1%, Namibia 19.6% and South Africa with 18.8%.

According to the report, there has been significant scale-up on the treatment front in South Africa - around 190 000 people were receiving therapy by the end of 2005, however, this still only represents less than 20% of those in need.