At 7am this morning (and every morning except Sundays), more than 30 kids came to the Gwaimen Center in Kwoi, where I work. About half of them are HIV+, so they start their day by taking ARVs to go with their breakfast. Most of them go to school until 12:30 then they return for lunch, baths, naptime. Then we usually spend a couple hours working on their reading, writing, and math, and playing, of course. In the evening, they head home with dinner and another dose of ARVs.

They didn’t follow this regiment because it’s World AIDS Day. This is what they do everyday. For the HIV+ children, their lives include CD4 counts, visits to the doctor, ARVs and their side-effects, and for nearly all of them, the loss or sickness of an HIV+ parent.

Yesterday, I was at the Center and hanging out with the kids. We were reading a book about kittens and practicing the alphabet – really notable stuff. And Precious, a one-year-old was sitting on my lap. They don’t know her HIV status yet because the test is more definitive once they are 18 months or 2 years old. But her mom is HIV+ (and a cook at the Center), and her brother Vincent is 3 and HIV+ (and a total handful). I just had to wonder what her life would look like. Our Executive Director, Beatrice Kadangs, always says “You’re either infected or you’re affected.”

People are campaigning hard to stop the spread of AIDS. One of the most powerful things I’ve heard is a commercial on TV, asking us to imagine an AIDS-free generation (and giving tools to prevent infections).

It’s a dream I think we all should share in and work towards – a world without AIDS.

-Anne Batchelder, ONE member, former ONE Deputy Director of Field, and founder of the Gwaimen Center in Kwoi, Nigeria

We’re mere hours away from World AIDS Day. Make sure to check out the many events planned by ONE members around the country as well as other leaders in the fight and then sign up to attend or host your own.

Of note, DATA (the org we’re merging with) released a bunch of cool stuff of late, including: analysis of the new AIDS numbers, and an amazing new report called “Africa Works,” which documents effective development assistance success stories.

Finally, President Bush requested an additional $30 billion for the global fight against AIDS over the next five years from Congress today. AP article here and AP photo of a giant red AIDS ribbon on the White House below.

-Virginia Simmons

When you’re talking about poverty and global disease, there’s nothing like stats to help people understand the scale of the tragedy. And here we have the latest stats on the AIDS epidemic from UNAIDS.

While the astronomical numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS can be overwhelming, there is important good news here. The number of people contracting AIDS and dying from AIDS annually are both on the decline.

Also, the methods for tacking and counting the AIDS crisis are getting better. As a result, (and as already mentioned here on Tuesday) UNAIDS revised their estimate of people living with AIDS from 39.5 million in 2006 to 33.2 million in 2007. This decline doesn’t mean that AIDS is any less prevalent, but knowledge is the first step in the fight.

Today we have an extra fact sheet for you to help you read through all the new stats.

Some key stats from the sheet to remember:

• People living with HIV/AIDS globally: 33.2m
• New infections in 2007: 2.5m (6,800 per day)
• Deaths from HIV/AIDS in 2007: 2.1m (5,700 per day)

Download the full breakdown of the UNAIDS report (pdf).

-Weldon Kennedy

World AIDS Day is this coming Saturday. More than 30 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. As ONE members, we should use this moment to raise awareness and take action.

Check out World AIDS Day events planned across the country by ONE members, college students and other leaders in the fight, and then sign up to attend one in your area or host one of your own.

-Virginia Simmons

Last week, citing the use of improved methodologies and better surveillance capabilities, the United Nations released news AIDS figures that place the number of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide at 33.2 million rather than their previous estimate of 39.5 million.

As World AIDS Day approaches this Saturday we expect to see many articles and op-eds mentioning these new stats. A quick excerpt from Sunday New York Times Editorial is below.

“There are, thankfully, glimmers of hope that the epidemic is beginning to wane. The number of new infections peaked in the late 1990s, and the number of people dying from AIDS-related illnesses has declined in the last two years, in part thanks to life-prolonging drug treatments…

But it’s hard to rejoice too much when the number of people living with AIDS infections is still rising, more than two million people — mostly in sub-Saharan Africa — are still dying from the disease each year, and eight countries in southern Africa have more than 15 percent of their populations infected, a devastating blow to their societies and economies. The revised numbers cannot be used as an excuse to relax the campaign against AIDS.”

You can read the full piece here, and please take this moment to sign up to attend or host a World AIDS Day event in your area.

Below, the key findings from the report, courtesy of ONE’s Josh Lozman:

Global Statistics:

· Number of people (adults and children) with HIV in 2007: 33.2 million (down from 39.5m reported in 2006 report)
· Number of children living with HIV: 2.5 million (increased from 1.5 million in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· Newly infected with HIV in 2007: 2.5 million (down from 4.3m reported in 2006 report)
· AIDS deaths in 2007: 2.1 million (down from 2.9m reported in2006 report)

Africa Statistics:

· Number of people living with HIV in 2007 in SSA: 22.5 million (increasing from 20.9 million in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· Newly infected with HIV in 2007: 1.7 million (declining from 2.2 million in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· AIDS death in 2007: 1.6 million
· Adult HIV prevalence: 5.0% (declined from 5.8% in 2001 using re-adjusted figures)
· Orphans due to AIDS: 11.4 million

Key Notes on Africa:

· AIDS remains the single largest cause of mortality in SSA
· Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for 35% of all people living with HIV and almost one third (32%) on all new HIV infections and AIDS deaths globally in 2007
· Eight countries in SSA have prevalence rates greater than 15%: Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe
· Only in Mozambique has there been a recent increase in prevalence.

Notable changes in Africa:

· Uganda’s decline in national HIV prevalence in the 90s has plateaued. Given Uganda’s high fertility rate (6.7), the leveling of prevalence actually points to a significant increase in the number of people acquiring HIV each year.
· In Mozambique, the epidemic has again started to increase in all three zones of the country. Prevalence of 20% or more has been found in the central and southern zones.
· HIV prevalence data in South Africa in this latest round suggests that HIV infection levels might be leveling off with prevalence among pregnant women having decrease from 30% in 2005 to 29% in 2006.
· National prevalence of HIV has declines in Kenya from a high of around 14% in the mid-1990s to 5% in 2006.

Why are the numbers lower?

· The reduction is due to “improvements” in methodology for surveillance and monitoring as well as some success in treatment and prevention.
· Revisions in six countries account for 70% of the shift – Angola, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. In Kenya and Zimbabwe, there is evidence that the decline is due to a reduction in the number of new infections in part due to a reduction in risky behavior.
· A couple different assumptions were used for this estimate. One of them is that the average number of years people are estimated to survive without HIV treatment has been increased from 9 to 11 years.
· Increased sentinel surveillance sites have allowed for better, more precise estimates.

Overall Trends:

· Prevalence has leveled off.
· AIDS is still the leading cause of death in Africa.
· There are 33.2 million people living with HIV, 6800 people becoming infected everyday and over 5700 people dying from AIDS everyday. This is primarily because of inadequate access to HIV prevention and treatment services – these are things we can do something about.

-Virginia Simmons