HIV and AIDS
Halting and reversing the spread of HIV and AIDS in the developing world.
HIV and AIDS
In the last 20 years significant progress has been made in the fight against HIV and AIDS. However, the human cost of the epidemic remains immense.
What are the facts?
- More than 33 million people are living with HIV globally. Over 30 million of these live in developing countries.
- South Africa is the country most affected by AIDS in the world. One sixth of all people with HIV live in South Africa.
- Every day in South Africa, 800 people die from AIDS and AIDS-related diseases. And each day 1500 people become infected with HIV – around one person every minute.
- More than 67% of all HIV positive people live in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Almost 61% of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women.
For more facts on HIV and AIDS see the DFID page 20 facts about HIV and AIDS.
What is DFID doing?
In June 2008, DFID Secretary of State Douglas Alexander launched the UK government's new AIDS strategy 'Achieving Universal Access'
(PDF, 3154kb).
This committed £6 billion to improving health systems and services in poor countries up to 2015. The strategy places particular emphasis upon prevention, as this is the best hope of stopping the epidemic.
The UK has spent some £1.5 billion on HIV and AIDS programmes over the last three years.
Great progress has been made as a result of global efforts, including lower HIV and AIDS prevalence in some countries, more access to HIV and AIDS treatment and marked increases in resources. But the epidemic continues to outstrip our efforts.
Prevention programmes are still only available to one in five people who need them, and for every two new people on treatment, another five get newly infected. Nearly 7,000 people every day are becoming infected with HIV and AIDS and over 5,700 dying. For every two people put on treatment there are five people newly infected.
The impact of HIV and AIDS on individuals and communities, particularly in southern Africa, is devastating. In some settings, HIV and AIDS is reversing progress towards better health, education and economic prosperity. For example, life expectancy in Swaziland has fallen from 57.8 in 1993 to 31.1 in 2006, largely due to the impact of HIV and AIDS.
Tackling HIV and AIDS removes a barrier to economic growth, encourages peace, democracy, good government and international security.
Prevention
Unless more is done on prevention, significant numbers of new infections will continue to occur, and the costs of treatment, care and support will escalate. There is strong evidence for the effectiveness of many approaches to prevention, including condom use and family planning.
Successful HIV and AIDS prevention is about enabling individuals, couples and communities to make healthy choices about sexual behaviour.
Significant achievements have been made in scaling up treatment, but coverage still varies widely between countries and population groups. Access to treatment for children remains inadequate. This is due in part to poor capacity to diagnose HIV and AIDS infection in infants and the difficulty of tailoring dosage.
Globally, women, young people, children, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, sex workers and prisoners are most affected by AIDS.
Improving health systems
Although tackling HIV and AIDS is not just about health, strengthening health systems will increase the response to the disease in developing countries.
In September 2007, the prime minister launched the International Health Partnership (IHP) as part of a renewed global push to meet the Millennium Development Goals on health. These are cutting child deaths, improving maternal care and fighting HIV and AIDS and other killer diseases.
The IHP aims to make health aid work better for poor people by improving coordination among donors, supporting countries' own health plans and getting individual governments to invest more in health services.
Links
DFID HIV and AIDS Research from IDS Knowledge Services
7 year old Annasurya plays with a classmate at an NGO funded school for orphans and former child labourers in Andhra Pradesh, India. She is HIV-positive and has lost her mother to AIDS. Image credit: Chris Stowers/Panos Pictures
Preventing people becoming infected with HIV is the best hope of stopping the pandemic.
Douglas Alexander Secretary of State
