HIV-INFECTION IN THE NINETIES

By the year 2000 a cumulative global total of 30-40 million men, women and children are projected to have been infected with HIV. This will represent a three to four times increase of the present total. Currently, it is estimated that about 5000 persons are newly infected daily. Worldwide, the predominant and increasing mode of transmission is by heterosexual intercourse. Therefore, the number of infected women will equal that of men. Consequently, more infants will be infected by their mothers and more infants will be orphaned as their parents die of AIDS. By the end of the 1990s, over one million adult AIDS cases and deaths per year are expected, most of them in developing countries. Although the majority of HIV infections are currently occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, the annual number of HIV infections in Asia is projected to exceed that in Africa during the 1990s. Also, in industrialized countries, the proportion of heterosexual transmission is increasing, and AIDS is becoming one of the predominant causes of death in young men and women. In spite of promising scientific progress, vaccines and therapeutic drugs are not expected to have any major impact on the global development of the pandemic during the 1990s. WHO is promoting behavioural changes, condom use and control of other sexually transmitted diseases as the most important preventive measures.