Friday - November 24, 2000
WHO Reports 5.3 Million New
Cases of HIV/AIDS
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - An estimated 5.3 million people worldwide
became infected with HIV/AIDS (news - web sites) this year, but
for the first time the number of new infections in sub-Saharan
Africa seems to have stabilized, the World Health Organization
(news - web sites) (WHO) said on Friday.
However, AIDS morbidity (contraction of the fatal disease)
and mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa increased in 2000,
offsetting the good news on infection rates, the United Nations
(news - web sites) health agency said.
The impoverished region of some 40 countries remains hardest
hit by the deadly pandemic, accounting for an estimated 3.8 million
or 72 percent of the new cases during the past year, WHO said
in its Weekly Epidemiological Record.
Worldwide, the number of adults and children living with HIV/AIDS
is estimated to reach 36.1 million people by year-end, split
almost equally between men and women.
``...HIV/AIDS continues to spread in all regions of the world,''
the Geneva-based WHO said. ``It is also estimated that during
2000, 5.3 million people (including 600,000 children aged less
than 15 years old) became infected.''
By year-end, an estimated 21.8 million adults and children
will have died from the fatal disease worldwide since the pandemic's
onset two decades ago, it added. The toll includes an estimated
three million victims this year.
WHO and UNAIDS are to launch their full annual AIDS report
on Tuesday.
Sub-Saharan Africa Worst Hit
Sub-Saharan African countries, where transmission is primarily
by heterosexual contact, account for 25.3 million of the total
36.1 million living victims.
WHO painted a mixed picture of the region, home to about one-tenth
of the world's total population.
``For the first time, the estimated number of new infections
in sub-Saharan Africa appears to have stabilized,'' WHO said.
``An estimated 3.8 million people were newly infected with
HIV in 2000 as opposed to a total of four million during 1999.''
But it added: ``The positive sign of a decrease in new infections
in sub-Saharan Africa is offset by the increase in AIDS morbidity
and mortality.''
Tanzania, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast and Uganda have reported
the highest number of cumulative cases on the continent.
Sex Trade, Drugs Boost Asian Infections
Asia and the Pacific countries follow with a total estimated
6.4 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS, including
more than 900,000 new cases this year, WHO said.
``Sex trade, use of illicit drugs, rates of sexually transmitted
infections and large population movements continue to increase
in this region,'' it added.
New Infections Steady In Rich Countries
Thousands of people continue to become infected in North America,
Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Yet the availability
of anti-retroviral drugs in these industrialized countries continues
to slow the virus's progression to full-blown AIDS and death,
according to the agency.
However, the number of new HIV infections in these countries
has remained ``relatively constant'' over the past years, it
said.
Canada and the United States have an estimated 920,000 people
living with HIV/AIDS, including an estimated 45,000 new cases
this year, according to WHO.
Western Europe, home to 540,000 victims, had an estimated
30,000 new infections. Australia and New Zealand have an estimated
15,000 people living with the virus or disease.
New infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, mostly
among injecting drug users, jumped by an estimated 250,000, causing
a 60 percent rise in the regional total of people living with
HIV/AIDS to 700,000, according to WHO.
North Africa and the Middle East had an estimated 80,000 new
cases last year, bringing the regional total of infections to
400,000 adults and children, it added.
Latin America, led by Brazil, has 1.4 million people living
with HIV/AIDS, while the Caribbean has nearly 40,000.
Death Toll of Uganda Ebola Outbreak Rises to 129
KAMPALA (Reuters) - The death toll from an outbreak of Ebola
(news - web sites) fever in Uganda has risen to 129, with 14
deaths since Tuesday and 19 more confirmed cases admitted to
hospital, health officials said on Friday.
But tests carried out in Uganda on blood samples from seven
Kenyans, who were considered at risk after attending the funeral
of a Ugandan Ebola victim, have all proved negative, said Alex
Opio, the Ugandan assistant commissioner for national disease
control.
The Kenyans had traveled to the central Ugandan town of Masindi
after a female relative and three of her family died there from
the deadly virus earlier this month.
There had been fears that the epidemic could have spread across
the border to Kenya.
The blood samples from the Kenyan visitors were tested at
a field laboratory run by experts from the Atlanta-based Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) (CDC) in
the northern town of Gulu, where Ebola fever appeared in mid-September.
All the deaths since Tuesday have been in Gulu, where 121
people have now died from the haemorrhagic fever, which in past
outbreaks has killed between 50 and 90 percent of its victims.
The epidemic has spread to two other districts -- in both
cases brought by people traveling from Gulu after coming into
contact with sick Ebola patients.
There is no cure for Ebola, which was first recognized in
1976 in former Zaire and neighboring Sudan, where epidemics killed
more than 400 people.
Most victims die from shock after days of high fever, chest
pains, vomiting and extensive internal bleeding. Doctors can
do little except provide supportive rehydration therapy. |
