HIV and AIDS in Africa
The Champions’ efforts are focused in Sub Saharan Africa, home to more than 70% of all people in the world living with HIV. An estimated 22 million people were living with HIV in this region at the end of 2007 and approximately 1.9 million additional people were infected with HIV during that year.

In the past year, the AIDS epidemic in Africa has claimed the lives of an estimated 1.5 million people. More than eleven million children have been orphaned by AIDS.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s epidemics vary significantly from country to country in both scale and scope. Adult national HIV prevalence is below 2% in several countries of West and Central Africa, as well as in the horn of Africa, but in 2007 it exceeded 15% in seven southern African countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). These countries remain the epicenter of the HIV epidemic and the focus of the Champions.

The societal impact of HIV, including millions of orphans and child-headed households, is enormous and the fiscal and economic costs are rising. The Champions recognize that despite significant efforts by African countries and growing financial flows from development partners, the overall response to the epidemic has failed to stop the occurrence of new infections and change behavior.
 
The limited impact has been attributed, in part, to the “perfect storm” of social behaviors—multiple concurrent sexual partners, limited prevalence of male circumcision and inconsistent condom use. Insufficient country ownership, limited implementation capacity and inadequate systems of management, coordination, monitoring and accountability have also delayed meaningful results.

In the absence of massively expanded prevention, treatment and care efforts, it is expected that the AIDS death toll in Sub Saharan Africa will continue to rise. This means that impact of the AIDS epidemic on these societies will be felt most strongly in the course of the next ten years and beyond. Its social and economic consequences are already widely felt, not only in the health sector but also in education, industry, agriculture, transport, human resources and the economy in general.

Source : UNAIDS 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic

Read more about HIV and Leadership
Read more about HIV Prevention
other Resources