In the year 2001 there were a total of 5 million new people that were infected with HIV. 800,000 of these were children.

World wide there are, by some reports, a total of some 40 million people infected with HIV/AIDS. Of these 40 million people, 37.1% are adults, 18.5 million are women, and 3 million are children ages 15 years or less.

AIDS deaths in 2001 totaled 21.8 million people. 17.5 million of these people were adults, 9 million were women and 4.3 million were children 15 years of age or less.

These statistics are startling. Even with all that we know about HIV and preventing its spread, we seem to be losing the battle in most areas against this epidemic. In Africa, where AIDS/HIV is most rampant, there is an ever increasing rate of aids infection. The expected life span in Africa has dropped from 62 to 47 years since the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. It has been calculated that there is a 74% probability that a boy or girl in Africa who turned 15 in the year 2000 will contract AIDS/HIV before his or her 50th birthday. Current trends show that unless something is changed, the number of people that are infected and die due to AIDS/HIV complications will continue to increase. This is clearly demonstrated by the following information: “In Guyana, where adult prevalence is 2.7%, the probability of HIV contraction between the ages of 15 and 50 from 2000-2035 is 19%.”(UNAIDS website “Report on the global HIV/AIDS Epidemic 2002”)

Africa is certainly not alone in its plight. Countries across the world are feeling the effects of this global epidemic. Indonesia, the worlds fourth most populated country, reported an increase from a 15.4% infection rate in 2000, to a 40% infection rate by the middle of 2001. Eastern European counties are for the most part seeing more, and more cases of HIV/AIDS infection across continent as the years go by with no sign of the pattern slowing or decreasing.

The Caribbean and Latin America are suffering as well. There are an estimated 1.9 million adults and children that are infected and living with HIV/AIDS. This statistic includes roughly 200,000 people that contracted HIV/AIDS in 2001alone. In all there are close to 1.5 million people in Latin America who have the HIV/AIDS infection and close to 420,000 in the area including the Caribbean.

In the USA there was a reported 793,026 new cases of AIDS across the country. It is believed that there are currently 800,000 to 900,000 people with HIV/AIDS in the US although the number that is actually recorded with the CDC ( Center for Disease Control) is much less, around 455,750. The reason for this discrepancy is due to several factors, including the fact that the reporting of people with HIV/AIDS has not yet been imposed in all states. Also any anonymous tests are excluded from the over-all count, and many people just do not know they are infected with HIV/AIDS.