Where Did Aids Come From
Scientists have traced the origin of HIV back to chimpanzees and simian immunodeficiency virus , an HIV-like virus that attacks the immune system of monkeys and apes.
In 1999, researchers identified a strain of chimpanzee SIV called SIVcpz, which was nearly identical to HIV. Chimps, the scientist later discovered, hunt and eat two smaller species of monkeysred-capped mangabeys and greater spot-nosed monkeysthat carry and infect the chimps with two strains of SIV. These two strains likely combined to form SIVcpz, which can spread between chimpanzees and humans.
SIVcpz likely jumped to humans when hunters in Africa ate infected chimps, or the chimps infected blood got into the cuts or wounds of hunters. Researchers believe the first transmission of SIV to HIV in humans that then led to the global pandemic occurred in 1920 in Kinshasa, the capital and largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The virus spread may have spread from Kinshasa along infrastructure routes via migrants and the sex trade.
In the 1960s, HIV spread from Africa to Haiti and the Caribbean when Haitian professionals in the colonial Democratic Republic of Congo returned home. The virus then moved from the Caribbean to New York City around 1970 and then to San Francisco later in the decade.
International travel from the United States helped the virus spread across the rest of the globe.
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Women And Girls Are At Especially High Risk Of Contracting Hiv
The face of AIDS in 2021 is that of an adolescent girl. Of the 200,000 new diagnoses of HIV in Africa last year, young women and adolescent girls ages 15-24 made up 27% of those new cases. The United Nations reported 1,000 new infections per week in this demographic.
Gender inequalities and gender-based violence restrict the rights of women and adolescent girls, including their ability to refuse unwanted sex or negotiate safer sex, and to access HIV and sexual and reproductive health services. Learn more about how gender inequality impacts the AIDS crisis.
Estimates Of Hiv In Sub
In 2013 an estimated 35.0 million people were living with HIV worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to only 12% of the global population, yet accounts for 71% of the global burden of HIV infection. Ten countries, mostly in southern and eastern Africa, viz. South Africa , Nigeria , Mozambique , Uganda , Tanzania , Zambia , Zimbabwe , Kenya , Malawi and Ethiopia , account for almost 80% of all people living with HIV .
The trends in new HIV infections across countries in sub-Saharan Africa have shown a decline by more than 33% from an estimated 2.2 million in 2005 to 1.5 million in 2013, but remain high. The scale up and widespread coverage of ART has led to substantial declines in new HIV infections. For example, HIV uninfected individuals living in a community with high ART coverage were 38% less likely to acquire HIV than those living in communities where ART coverage was low . Despite these declines, HIV incidence rates remain unacceptably high with the largest number of new infections coming from South Africa , Nigeria , Uganda , Mozambique and Kenya . The epidemics in Botswana, Namibia and Zambia appear to be declining, whilst the epidemics in Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland seem to be plateauing .
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How Does Hiv Affect Different Groups Of People
There are different ways to answer this question.
In 2020, male-to-male sexual contactdaccounted for68% of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States and dependent areas.In the same year, heterosexual contact accounted for 22% of all HIV diagnoses.
Data for 2020 should be interpreted with caution due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to HIV testing, care-related services, and case surveillance activities in state and local jurisdictions.NOTE: Does not include other and perinatal transmission categories.* Among people aged 13 and older.
If we look at HIV diagnoses by race and ethnicity, we see that Black/African American people are most affected by HIV. In 2020, Black/African American people accounted for 42% of all new HIV diagnoses. Additionally, Hispanic/Latino people are also strongly affected. They accounted for 27% of all new HIV diagnoses.
Data for 2020 should be interpreted with caution due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to HIV testing, care-related services, and case surveillance activities in state and local jurisdictions.* Among people aged 13 and older.Black refers to people having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. African American is a term often used for people of African descent with ancestry in North America.Hispanic/Latino people can be of any race.
The most affected subpopulation is Black/African American gay and bisexual men.
How Have Deaths From Hiv/aids Changed Over Time
Global deaths from HIV/AIDS halved within a decade
The world has made significant progress against HIV/AIDS. Global deaths from AIDS have halved over the past decade.
In the visualization we see the global number of deaths from HIV/AIDS in recent decades this is shown by age group. In the early 2000s 2004 to 2005 global deaths reached their peak at almost 2 million per year.
Driven mostly by the development and availability of antiretroviral therapy , global deaths have halved since then. In 2017, just under one million died from the disease.
You can explore this change for any country or region using the change country toggle on the interactive chart.
HIV/AIDS once accounted for more than 1-in-3 deaths in some countries, but rates are now falling
Global progress on HIV/AIDS has been driven by large improvements in countries which were most affected by the HIV epidemic.
Today the share of deaths remains high: more than 1-in-4 deaths in some countries are caused by HIV/AIDS. But in the past this share was even higher.In the visualization we see the change in the share of deaths from HIV/AIDS over time. From the 1990s through to the early 2000s, it was the cause of greater than 1-in-3 deaths in several countries. In Zimbabwe, it accounted for more than half of annual deaths in the late 1990s.
We see that over the past decade this share has fallen as antiretoviral treatment has become more widely available.
Children living with HIV
New HIV infections of children
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Leadership Reaction In South Africa And Elsewhere
In the rest of Africa, many heads of state, including the presidents of Uganda, Botswana, Nigeria, and several other countries, are taking major roles in fighting the epidemic. Several regional AIDS initiatives have been launched. For example, in August 2003, the Southern African Development Community agreed to an AIDS strategic framework, including the creation of a regional fund to fight the disease. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development , in partnership with the African Union, UNAIDS, and other multinational entities, has formulated a range of strategies for countering AIDS, though the products of these efforts appear to be limited at present.
The Fall In New Infections Is Due To A Combination Of Several Factors
Prevention efforts, particularly those focused on changes in sexual behavior, such as condom use, later sexual debut, and reducing the number of sexual partners, have played an important role in limiting new infections. The increase in number of infected persons receiving antiretroviral treatment has also been important in controlling sexual transmission of the virus . In addition, male circumcision, now practiced in countries with extremely high prevalence rates where few men were circumcised traditionally, has proven effective in reducing woman-to-man transmission.
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Women: The Face Of Aids In Africa
* Get more information on UNAIDS and its activities against the disease at: www.unaids.org
There are days when Mary Mwasi does not know where she will find the strength to get out of bed. But sickness, exhaustion and despair will not feed the children or fetch the water, and so, somehow, she wills herself erect and steps into the sunlight of another Kenyan morning. “I have to look for food for the children day by day,” she told a counselor for the US charity World Vision. “Life is difficult. Unless I get help from well-wishers, we cannot afford to eat.”
Like many other residents of Ghaza, a village near the port city of Mombasa, Mrs. Mwasi is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At least one of her three children is also HIV-positive and the others are often ill — whether from the disease or malnutrition, she cannot be sure. Her husband left in search of work two years ago and never came back, so she lives on sufferance on her in-laws’ land — fearful that they will learn of her condition and expel her from the community. Her only financial assets are a few chickens, held in reserve to buy medicine for the kids.
She knows there is no hope for her. Her concern is for her children. “We say, ‘When you pour water on the ground, you cannot pick it up again,'” Mary told the counselor. “I did not think of so many things before, so many worries. I am trying to leave everything to God.”
Young women an ‘endangered species’
Facing the future
Targeting ‘sugar daddies’
Successes In The South African Hiv Battle
It would be unfair to say that the picture has been all doom and gloom for South Africa. One of its major successes has been the reduction of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. With better surveillance at antenatal clinics and widespread use of prophylactic HIV medications, the rate of MTCT dropped from 8% in 2008 to 2.7% by 2012.
As a result, the HIV death rate has also dropped among children by 20%. Despite this, the implementation of antiretroviral therapy in children has fallen well behind that of adults, and over 70% of all maternal deaths in South Africa attributed to HIV.
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Determinants And Transmission Channels On The Epidemic
To date, HIV/AIDS has reached the proportions of a pandemic. While factors determining the transmission of virus from one individual to another are purely personal, what makes this disease an epidemic is due to factors much more complex and global. Following Bonnel , we can distinguish three groups of determinants for the epidemic: socioeconomic, sociocultural and epidemiological.
Global Hiv & Aids Statistics Fact Sheet
GLOBAL HIV STATISTICS
- 28.2 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy as of 30 June 2021.
- 37.7 million people globally were living with HIV in 2020.
- 1.5 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2020.
- 680 000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2020.
- 79.3 million people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic.
- 36.3 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic.
People living with HIV
- In 2020, there were 37.7 million people living with HIV.
- 36.0 million adults.
- 1.7 million children .
- 53% of all people living with HIV were women and girls.
People living with HIV accessing antiretroviral therapy
- As of 30 June 2021, 28.2 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy, up from 7.8 million in 2010.
- In 2020, 73% of all people living with HIV were accessing treatment.
- 74% of adults aged 15 years and older living with HIV had access to treatment, as did 54% of children aged 014 years.
- 79% of female adults aged 15 years and older had access to treatment however, just 68% of male adults aged 15 years and older had access.
New HIV infections
AIDS-related deaths
COVID-19 and HIV
Key populations
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Role Of The Media In South Africa’s Epidemic
The South African press took a strong advocacy position during the denialism era under Thabo Mbeki. There are numerous examples of journalists taking the government to task for policy positions and public statements that were seen as irresponsible.:44 Some of these examples include: attacks on Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s “garlic and potato” approach to treatment, outrage at Mbeki’s statement that he never knew anyone who had died of AIDS, and coverage of the humiliating 2006 International AIDS Conference.
It could be claimed that the news media have taken a less aggressive stance since the end of Mbeki’s presidency and the death of Tshabalala Msimang. The emergence of Jacob Zuma as party and state leader heralded what the press saw as a new era of AIDS treatment. However, this also means that HIV is afforded less news coverage. A recent study by the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project has shown that the quantity of HIV-related news coverage has declined dramatically from 2002/3 to the more recent “conflict resolution” phase under Zuma. Perhaps HIV has fallen into the traditional categories of being impersonal, undramatic, “old” news. The number of health journalists has also declined considerably.
Preventing Hiv Transmission From Pregnant Women To Children
The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS reported that the following sixteen African nations in 2012 “ensure that more than three-quarters of pregnant women living with HIV receive antiretroviral medicine to prevent transmission to their child”: Botswana, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, São Tomé and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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The Worlds Largest Hiv Epidemic In Crisis: Hiv In South Africa
In some communities of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, 60 percent of women have HIV. Nearly 4,500 South Africans are newly infected every week one-third are adolescent girls/young women ages 15-24. These are staggering figures, by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, the HIV epidemic is not being treated like a crisis. In February, we traveled to South Africa, to understand what is happening in these areas with hyper-endemic HIV epidemics, where prevalence rates exceed 15 percent among adults. We were alarmed by the complacency toward the rate of new infections at all levels and the absence of an emergency response, especially for young people.
This is no time for business as usual from South Africa or its partners, including the U.S. government through the U.S. Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief . The epidemic is exacerbated by its concentration in 15-49-year-olds, those of reproductive and working age who are the backbone of South Africa. Without aggressive action to reduce the rate of new infections in young people, HIV will continue to take a tremendous toll on the country for years and generations to come. Collective action is needed to push beyond the complacency and internal barriers to implement policies and interventions that directly target HIV prevention and treatment for young people. PEPFAR should ensure its programs support those efforts.
The Aids Epidemic Arises
Though HIV arrived in the United States around 1970, it didnt come to the publics attention until the early 1980s.
In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report about five previously healthy homosexual men becoming infected with Pneumocystis pneumonia, which is caused by the normally harmless fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii. This type of pneumonia, the CDC noted, almost never affects people with uncompromised immune systems.
The following year, The New York Times published an alarming article about the new immune system disorder, which, by that time, had affected 335 people, killing 136 of them. Because the disease appeared to affect mostly homosexual men, officials initially called it gay-related immune deficiency, or GRID.
Though the CDC discovered all major routes of the diseases transmissionas well as that female partners of AIDS-positive men could be infectedin 1983, the public considered AIDS a gay disease. It was even called the gay plague for many years after.
In September of 1982, the CDC used the term AIDS to describe the disease for the first time. By the end of the year, AIDS cases were also reported in a number of European countries.
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Legislation In The 110th Congress
Apart from appropriations legislation that would fund global HIV/AIDS assistance programs, legislation introduced in the 110th Congress that focus on AIDS in Africa include:
During the first session of the 110th Congress, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held the following two hearings on HIV/AIDS:
- Perspectives on the next Phase of the Global Fight Against Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, December 13, 2007 and
- The Next Phase of the Global Fight Against HIV/AIDS, October 24, 2007.
During the first session of the 110th Congress, the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held the following hearing on HIV/AIDS:
- The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief: Is It Fulfilling the Nutrition and Food Security Needs of People Living with HIV/AIDS?, October 9, 2007.
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The Aids Crisis In Africa: 5 Things To Know In 2021
Story1 December 2021
Forty years since the first AIDS cases were reported in 1981, HIV still threatens the world, which is off-track to deliver on its commitments to end AIDS by 2030.
The HIV pandemic is even at risk of a resurgence, not because of a lack of knowledge or tools, but because of structural inequalities that obstruct proven solutions to HIV prevention and treatment, especially in key areas of Africa.
That doesnt mean all hope is lost. Here are 5 things to know about the AIDS crisis in Africa in 2021, including where were falling short, whats been done to get us back on track, and what we still need to do.
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