United Press International - November 24, 2000
John Zarocostas

The increase would bring the total living with the virus to 36.1 million, according to projections published Friday by the World Health Organization.

Sub-Sahara Africa, remains the hardest hit region with 3.8 million, or 72 percent of the new HIV infections, WHO said, while noting the situation in the region appears to have stabilized. The number of new cases is estimated 200,000, less then last year's total of 4 million.

Approximately 3 million people are expected to die from the virus in 2000, bringing the total number of adults and children to have died since the beginning of the epidemic to 21.8 million, the health agency said in a report update published in its Weekly Epidemiological Record.

"Deaths in women also continue to increase," and will account for an estimated 52 percent of adult deaths due to HIV this year, WHO said, emphasizing that the virus continues to spread in all regions of the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa, still accounts for about 70 percent of the people living with the virus and 80 percent of deaths in the past year, the agency said. They pointed out that in 2000, Eastern Europe and Central Asia have posted some of the sharpest increases in HIV infections.

"An estimated 250,000 people were newly infected in 2000, causing a 60 percent increase in the regional total of people living with HIV/AIDS, to 700,000. Most of the infections continue to occur among injecting drug users," it added.

The report says thousands of people continue to be infected in rich countries of North America, Western Europe and the Pacific, and the number living with HIV is projected to reach 1.5 million at the end of 2000.

But it adds the availability of anti-retroviral therapy in advanced industrial countries has "continued to reduce progression to AIDS, deaths and HIV transmission from mother to child."

With regards to other areas, the WHO reports concludes an estimated 6.4 million adults and children will be living with HIV in Asia and the Pacific by the end of 2000, while the number in Latin America and the Caribbean will reach 1.8 million by the end of 2000.

In North Africa and the Middle East, new data indicate "an increase in infections, estimated at 80,000 for 2000," which brings the regional total living with HIV/AIDS to around 400,000 by the end of 2000, the report said.

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