AIDS Epidemic Spreading

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - With millions of people worldwide living with

AIDS (news - web sites) and the HIV virus (news - web sites), a new
U.N. chart paints a grim picture of the epidemic spreading not only
through Africa, but also through parts of Asia and Latin America.
Five countries have at least 2 million people each living with AIDS or
the HIV virus - Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa,
according to a chart released Thursday by the United Nations (news web sites) Population Division.
In five other African countries - Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zambia
and Zimbabwe - at least 20 percent of the adult population is infected.
By 2005, life expectancy will have dropped by at least 17 years in
these five countries as well as in Kenya, Namibia and South Africa, the
chart showed.
Outside Africa, AIDS deaths will decrease life expectancy by at least
three years in the Bahamas, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic,
Guyana, Haiti and Myanmar by 2005.
``The numbers show a worsening of the impact of the HIV (news - web
sites)/AIDS epidemic in terms of increased illness, deaths and
population loss - and we're not even at the peak of the deaths,'' said
Joseph Chamie, director of the U.N. Population Division.
In 1999, the disease killed 310,000 people in India, more than any
other country. Ethiopia was second with 280,000 deaths followed by
Nigeria with 250,000.
``We've had wars before, and a great number of people have died in
those wars, but it hasn't had the impact on average life expectancy
that we observe in some of the countries hardest-hit by HIV/AIDS,''
Chamie told The Associated Press.
In Botswana, the United Nations projected that at the end of the 20th
century, life expectancy should have been about 68 years. But
because of AIDS, life expectancy was around 44 years. Similarly, in
South Africa, without AIDS, life expectancy should have been around
63 years but instead it has fallen to around 57.
The chart was produced ahead of the U.N. General Assembly special
session on HIV/AIDS June 25-27, which is expected to adopt a global
agenda to combat the disease. It includes AIDS statistics from every
country, including life expectancy with and without AIDS, condom use,
and health expenditure per capita.
U.N. figures indicate that the use of condoms - the cheapest and most
effective form of protection against transmission of the HIV virus
during sexual contact - is rare in most regions.

Despite the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic, however, the

population of the most affected countries is expected to increase by
2050, Chamie said.
``We project that the African population which is today around 800
million is likely to be 2 billion by 2050, even with AIDS,'' he said.