Global trends in AIDS mortality

Since the late 1970s, the AIDS epidemic has spread rapidly worldwide, and by mid-1995 a cumulative total of approximately 18.5 million adults had been infected with HIV, the epidemic's etiological agent. A set of projections of the annual number of AIDS cases and AIDS deaths from 1995 to 2005 for each of the world's major regions is presented. The epidemic is expected to continue to grow rapidly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. By contrast, in North America and Europe the annual number of new AIDS cases is projected to level off in the next few years. The effect of the epidemic on the death rate will be highest in sub-Saharan Africa, but population growth in this region will remain high.