Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

AIDS or acquired immune deficiency syndrome is caused by a retrovirus identified in 1984, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Twenty years later, it is estimated that over 20 million people have died of AIDS and 40 million people are living with HIV, with 95 percent living in developing countries. The world is facing a global pandemic: a pandemic marked by inequalities of class, gender, race, and sexual preference. The spread of HIV and AIDS is not evenly distributed and prevalence rates range from less than 1 percent of the adult population in much of the developed world to more than 30 percent in some southern African countries. Some countries in northwestern Europe and Australia have “local” epidemics mainly confined to gay men; some such as Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are experiencing “generalized” epidemics where the entire sexually active population is affected; others such as Russia are experiencing an accelerating epidemic initially confined to transmission among injecting drug users but now becoming generalized; while still others such as the United States and some countries in South America are experiencing multiple epidemics – among people who inject drugs, among gay men, and increasingly among the poor. In Asia and the Pacific regions the patterning of the epidemic continues to emerge, but there are fears that some countries, such as India, will ... log in or subscribe to read full text