Who is affected by HIV and AIDS?

HIV does not discriminate. Anyone, anywhere, can become infected.

As of the end of 2007*:

• 33.2 million people worldwide were infected with HIV.
• 2.5 million of those infected were children under the age of 15.
• By 2010, UNICEF estimates AIDS will orphan 15.7 million children.
• In the United States, there were over 40,000 new infections during 2007.
• While Africa accounts for just 10 percent of the world’s population, it is home to 68 percent of all people (over 22.5 million) living with HIV and AIDS.
• Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 24 of the 25 countries with the world’s highest level of HIV prevalence, this is approximately 5% of the population.
• Almost 90 percent of all HIV positive children live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• While Africa is proportionally the region hardest hit by the HIV and AIDS epidemic, the total number of orphans is largest in Asia.
• According to UNICEF, young women aged 15-24 in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are up to six times more likely to be infected with HIV than young men their age.
• Every day, about 1,200 children under age 15 become infected with HIV.
• 61% of all people in Sub Saharan Africa infected with HIV are women.
• In some Sub Saharan African countries, young girls are twice as likely to be HIV positive as boys their age.
• Women aged 15-24 are most vulnerable to new infection for both physical and socio-cultural reasons.

Women and girls are more vulnerable

• 61% of all people in Sub Saharan Africa infected with HIV are women.
• In some Sub Saharan African countries, young girls are twice as likely to be HIV positive as boys their age.
• Women aged 15-24 are most vulnerable to new infection for both physical and socio-cultural reasons.

Women, because of their physical anatomy, are already at greater risk for HIV. Gender inequality in many societies increases women’s risk of contracting HIV. Women have less power in their communities and in their relationships. Women’s choices in who they marry and when are often limited or made for them. Within their relationship’s women can lack the power to make choices on family planning. Definitions of masculinity can also encourage or at least lead to the overlooking of unfaithfulness and other risky sexual behaviors.

Women and girls face gender inequality in education and employment which may also lead to an increase in their risk of contracting HIV. Without good educations, and economic opportunity to bring money into the home, young women and girls may turn to risky sexual behaviors.

Gender based violence, particularly during conflict, is also a serious risk factor for HIV.**

* Sources: UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2007: Women and Children; UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update 2007; US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, Volume 17, Revised Edition, June 2007; Children on the Brink 2004: A Joint Report of New Orphan Estimates; Framework for Action, generated by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

*Source: “Moving Beyond Gender as Usual” Kim Asburn, Nandini Oomman, David Wendt, and Steven Rosenzweig; USAID Report on the global AIDS epidemic 2008.