AIDS Infects 39.5 Million World-Wide: U.N. Report — Waco Group To Observe World AIDS Day

UNITED NATIONS The United Nations reported last week that about 39.5 million people around the world are infected with the AIDS virus. About 17.7 million women of that estimated total include women.

The deadly virus has already been dubbed the most destructive illness in history, taking 25 million lives since 1981.

While the spread of the disease is stable in Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America, the same can’t be said for Sub-Sahara Africa, East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.

Sub-Sahara African still leads the world in the number of AIDS infected people with 24.7 million cases, 59 percent of whom are women.

Cases of HIV in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia have jumped by 21 percent in the last two years.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia, though, have experienced a 70 percent increase in infections in the same time span.

New infections rose by 15 percent in South and Southeast Asia and by 12 percent in North Africa and the Middle East since 2004.

The U.N.’s AIDS epidemic update report failed to breakdown the estimated AIDS cases by county, but with the 1.2 million people living with HIV last year, the United States is in the top 10 of countries with the highest number of infected people.

The epidemic in the United States has infected more racial and ethnic minorities than Caucasians. African Americans make up half the AIDS diagnoses from 2001-2004 Hispanics, 20 percent.

The joint report by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization was released two weeks prior to the World AIDS Day Observance.

The McLennan County World AIDS Day Observance will be held Friday, Dec. 1, at 6 p.m.

World AIDS Day will be observed by in McLennan County on Friday, Dec. 1., at the Eddie and Velma Dwyer Community Center, 507 Jefferson (corner of 5th and Jefferson) in Waco.

This observance sponsored by McCARES, McLennan County AIDS/HIV Resources and Education Services will include music and speakers paying tribute to those who are living with or have died from this pandemic and a candle lighting ceremony to end the observance.

The international theme for this year’s observance is “Stop AIDS, Keep The Promise.”

For more information on the McLennan County observance, contact John Park or Parker Willson.

INFO
Park
johnpark@grandecom.net

Willson
722-2832