UNAIDS, the multi-agency UN coordinating body for AIDS prevention and control, has produced its increasingly horrifying review of the world AIDS situation, just ahead of next month's world AIDS conference in South Africa. We present here an edited version of five of the organization's "fact-sheets" relating to the most affected regions and countries, including - here and there - some hints of success:
Africa
While some gains were made in prevention and care in a number of countries, there were 4 million new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa during 1999. In Africa, AIDS now kills ten times more people a year than war.
There are now 16 countries in Africa in which more than one-tenth of the adult population (aged 15-49) is infected with HIV.
In the six countries of southern Africa, AIDS is expected to claim the lives of between 8% and 25% of today's practising doctors by the...