HIV and AIDS Facts

HIV and AIDS Facts

The facts about HIV and AIDS reveal a devastating reality that is especially hard on children living in poverty. For instance, around the world nearly 2 million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV. This is just one of the many heartbreaking HIV and AIDS facts that give a glimpse of the destruction that the disease causes.

The facts about HIV and AIDS aren’t limited to children with the disease. Even when children themselves don’t have HIV, many are still affected by it. This is especially true for children in Sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 12 million children there under age 18 have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

While the HIV and AIDS facts are overwhelming, Compassion is working hard to change reality for those affected by HIV and AIDS. Compassion’s HIV and AIDS Initiative is taking the disease head on through education, treatment and rehabilitation.

When you sponsor an AIDS-affected child through Compassion, you provide hope – not just the hope of escaping poverty but the hope that HIV does not have to mean death. Compassion’s program aims to stop the destruction evident in the HIV and AIDS facts, one child at a time.

HIV/AIDS Facts
HIV Facts Get the facts about HIV and AIDS and how it affects children and their families.
  • Approximately 15 million children under age 18 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Of these, nearly 12 million live in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 67 percent of the total world HIV-positive population.
  • Of the estimated 2 million children under 15 living with HIV, nearly 90 percent live in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Of the estimated 2.7 million people newly infected with HIV in 2007, some 370,000 were children under 15.
  • In 2007, an estimated 2 million people died of AIDS-related causes. Approximately 290,000 of these were children under 15.
  • Currently, less than 10 percent of HIV-positive children in need of treatment are being treated.
  • About 45 percent of new infections occur among young people ages 15 to 24.
  • Each day, about 1,000 children worldwide become infected with HIV, the vast majority of them newborns.
  • To date about 65 million people have been infected with HIV, and AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized in 1981.
  • About 15.5 million women comprise nearly half the total number of people living with HIV, and 77 percent (12 million) of women with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most affected region in the world. Two-thirds of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa; in 2007, 22 million people there were living with HIV.
  • In 2007, 33 million people were living with HIV. About 8 percent of those 33 million people living with HIV were from new infections - and one-fifth of that 8 percent were children.
  • Although about 33 percent of HIV-positive pregnant women receive drug therapies to prevent the transmission of HIV to their infants, only 11 percent of HIV-positive women in sub-Saharan Africa who need antiretrovirals had access.
  • More than 6,800 new HIV infections occur daily worldwide, and more than 5,700 people die of AIDS.
  • Approximately 5.5 million young people, ages 15 to 24, are living with HIV.

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