Associated Press - November 24, 2000

The U.N. health body said there are an estimated 250,000 new cases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia this year, bringing the total there to 700,000. "Most of the infections continue to occur among injecting drug users," the WHO said, noting that the AIDS epidemic only hit the region in the 1990s after the fall of communism.

The estimates by WHO and UNAIDS, contained in a weekly report released ahead of a major study on the disease next week, said there will be around 5.3 million new cases of HIV infection this year -including 600,000 children under 15 -and 3 million people will die from AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the worst-hit region, with 72% of the new infections and 80% of the deaths in the past year, according to the report.

It predicts that the region will have 25.3 million people with HIV/AIDS by the end of the year, 55% of them women. That would mean that 8.8% of all adults there would be HIV positive.

An estimated 6.4 million people in Asia and the Pacific will be HIV positive, the organization said. Most of those infections are in a few large countries in South and Southeast Asia.

"While prevalence in the adult population continues to be relatively low in many Asian countries, available behavioral data suggests an increased vulnerability," it said, citing the importance of the sex trade, use of illicit drugs and large population movements.

In the industrialized countries of North America, Western Europe and the Pacific, an estimated 1.5 million people will be living with HIV by the end of the year.

"While the availability of antiretroviral therapy has continued to reduce progression to AIDS, deaths and HIV transmission from mother to child, the number of new HIV infections has remained relatively constant over the past few years," it said.

The agency expects 45,000 new cases in North America and 30,000 in Western Europe.

"By the end of 2000, it is estimated that a total of 21.8 million adults and children will have died because of HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic," the organization said. "Mortality due to HIV continued to increase, with an estimated 3 million deaths during 2000. Deaths in women also continue to increase, accounting for an estimated 52% of adult deaths due to HIV in 2000."
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