UNAIDS, has launched its annual status report. The big news is that the number of HIV positive in the world has been reduced by 6 million people.
Data and data collection has been improved. This has shown new results especially in India, that accounts for 70 percent of the total change in the statistics.
When the changes related to methodology have been taken into account, we must acknowledge that the aids-epidemic still is serious. Today 33 million people are infected with HIV, and every year and additional 2,5 million people are infected with the disease. This corresponds to almost five people getting infected every minute.
The greater part of the infected can still be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, were the epidemic is a great hindrance to development. In countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe, were more than 15 percent of the population is infected with HIV, the disease has considerable consequences for both economic and social development.
Huge insecurity
Even though the methods for measurement have become much better, one still has to be cautious about the numbers from UNAIDS. The annual 2.5 mio newly HIV infected, are in the report specified as a number between 1,8 and 4,1 million people. The challenges to identify the exact numbers are plenty.
According to the report there were 39.000 new HIV-infected in Russia in 2006. The number is identified according to the number of people who have been in contact with the authorities. As HIV and AIDS is related to strong prejudice and stigmatization and because the larger part of the infected in Russia are injecting drug users and socially excluded, it is likely that the number of infected is much larger.
A great effort is needed
The new numbers presented by UNAIDS cannot become an excuse to cut down the global effort in the fight against AIDS. On the contrary the numbers show that a huge effort is still needed. The disease has influence on the whole society. For development sectors such as the industry, education, health and food security it is crucial, that the AIDS epidemic comes under control. This makes a continued engagement from governments, organizations and populations essential.
In the last few years, Denmark has increased its focus on HIV/AIDS, and the government can be proud to know that Denmark is one the countries that takes responsibility. DanChurchAid therefore hopes, that the government will uphold this focus and that the work with HIV/AIDS and health will continue to have a central position in the debate about Danish development aid.