Sub-Saharan Africa is more heavily affected by HIV and AIDS than any other region of the world. An estimated 24.5 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2005 and approximately 2.7 million additional people were infected with HIV during that year.1 In just the past year, the AIDS epidemic in Africa has claimed the lives of an estimated 2 million people in this region. More than twelve million children have been orphaned by AIDS.2 The extent of the AIDS crisis is only now becoming clear in many African countries, as increasing numbers of people with HIV are becoming ill. 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.
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q online - NEWS: SA Aaids vaccine by 2004
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AfricaFiles | King cancels World AIDS Day in Swaziland
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