In just 25 years, HIV/AIDS has become a global pandemic that has infected nearly 70 million people and left 25 million dead. In the developing world, HIV/AIDS is spreading most rapidly in the poorest communities, and a lack of infrastructure, public health care and transportation and affordable medicines is impeding efforts aimed at stopping the deadly virus. Every day across the world, 11,000 people are infected with HIV and 8,000 die of AIDS-related causes.
The AIDS epidemic has been labeled the world’s biggest catastrophe by leading experts, and although infection rates seem to be slowing in several regions, the epidemic continues to grow in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and many African countries. Africa remains the continent most affected and infected by HIV/AIDS virus. In the country of South Africa alone, up to 30% of some populations of young adults are HIV positive and the pandemic continues to spread.
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to less than 10% of the world’s population, yet 65% of the world’s HIV positive persons live in this region. In fact, fully 90% of children living with HIV are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and more than 12 million children have been orphaned by AIDS in Africa since the epidemic began. And every day, the virus turns 6,500 more children into orphans.
Women, children and the poor are being disproportionately affected by the HIV/AIDS virus, especially those in developing nations. Again, in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are three HIV positive young women for every infected young man. In nearly every one of these developing countries, rates and death tolls rise as income falls, placing the burden more heavily on the poor.
In the absence of wide scale prevention, treatment and care efforts, the global AIDS death toll is expected to continue rising before peaking near the end of the decade. This means that the worst of the pandemic’s impact has yet to be felt in all ways from human resources and education to industry and economy.
ServLife International is working to address HIV/AIDS by:
- Supporting child victims of AIDS
- Working with local clinics and churches to expand education and treatment to adults
- Teaching the facts about HIV/AIDS to poor, urban youth and children
- Supporting church and community-based efforts to bring more counseling, testing, and educational resources to affected areas of southern Africa
