Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 24 Nov 1995
Stephanie Nebehay, Reuter

Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of U.N. AIDS, also said trials for testing vaccines on volunteers probably would not start for another year and would last from three to four years.

An estimated 14-15 million adults worldwide have the HIV virus or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). About 90 percent of those stricken live in developing countries.

"This number would reach 40 million by the year 2000, which is just five years in the future," Piot told a news conference.

"From henceforth, HIV and AIDS are part of the human condition. It is not a little epidemic flare-up but a condition that will be with us for a long time," he added.

Piot, a Belgian epidemiologist credited as co-discoverer of the Ebola virus in Zaire in the 1970s, was speaking ahead of World AIDS Day. It is to be observed Dec. 1 under the theme of "Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities."

"We will commemorate the nearly five million people which the AIDS epidemic has already taken from us, without counting the mates, lovers, friends and orphans they have left behind."

Piot called for more compassionate, non-discriminatory care for AIDS victims. "There are still many places, hospitals, where people with AIDS are denied even the basic type of humane care."

The new U.N. AIDS program will merge the activities of six U.N. agencies from January 1, in effect succeeding the Global Program on AIDS now under the World Health Organization (WHO).

A statement issued by Piot's program said, "The extensive spread of HIV in South and Southeast Asia began in the mid-1980s, but its progression has been very rapid. What is happening in Africa now could be dwarfed by the Asian epidemic."

There are estimated to be more than three million people with HIV and AIDS in the Asian region, with India and Thailand accounting for the majority of infections.

"For the region's adults, the predominant modes of transmission are unprotected heterosexual intercourse and needle-sharing. In some Asian countries, a large proportion of sex outside marriage is not 'casual sex' but commercial sex."

AIDS is spreading rapidly in and around the area known as the Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand and Laos), where most of the world's opium and heroin are produced.

The sub-Saharan Africa region has been hardest hit by the epidemic, which began in the 1970s. There are about 8.5 million HIV-infected adults on the continent, but the picture is mixed.

"In Uganda, the epidemic has taken on the dimension of a national catastrophe. In the major cities there, still about 30 per cent of adults are infected," Piot said.

AIDS is new but spreading at a "very high speed" in South Africa, he added. But there is evidence for a stabilization of HIV infection rates in certain areas of East and Central Africa.

There are some 750,000 adults living with HIV and AIDS in the United States, which has by far the highest reported rate in the industrialized world. Transmission of HIV virus through heterosexual intercourse is on the rise, according to UN AIDS.

In Western Europe, about 450,000 people live with HIV and AIDS. "There is some evidence that HIV prevalence has stabilized in northern countries such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom," the statement said.

Piot told the news conference, "Most probably it has peaked in some countries of northwestern Europe. There are good signs we are over the peak of newly-infected individuals (there).

"Trends are particularly worrisome in the southern parts of Europe -- Spain, Italy, the south of France. The driving force of the epidemic there is injecting drug use, much more than in the rest of Europe where it is still homosexual contact that is the number one mode of transmission," he added.

In Spain and Italy, injecting drug users still account for two-thirds or more of all reported AIDS cases.

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