World AIDS Day 2007: By the Numbers

The 20th annual World AIDS Day is being commemorated on Saturday. The day is dedicated to raising awareness of the profound effect the HIV virus, and the disease it causes, AIDS, has had on the world’s population. In Minnesota, and around the world, communities will host events to raise awareness for one of the worst epidemics in human history.

The theme for this year’s commemoration is “Leadership.” Government leaders, advocates and relief organization will grapple with these numbers as the fight to curb HIV moves ahead in 2008:Worldwide

• HIV originated in Africa some time in the 1930s
• 33 million people are infected with HIV
• 2.2 million die each year from AIDS
• Worldwide spending on HIV is about $10 billion
• Southern Africa has been the hardest hit. In Swaziland and Botswana, one in three adults has HIV
• 2.5 million children are living with HIV
• 12 million children in Africa are orphans due to AIDS

United States

• HIV likely came to America as early as 1969 via immigrants from Haiti
• An estimated 550,394 Americans have died of AIDS
• An estimated 437,982 Americans are living with HIV
• African-American women are 19 times more likely to contract HIV than their white counterparts
• Americans infected with HIV live on average 24.2 years with the disease
• The lifetime medical cost for someone infected with HIV is $618,900 per person, or $2100 a month
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent $293,758,549 in 2006 for HIV prevention nationwide
• New HIV infections dropped from 160,000 per year in the mid-1980s to 40,000 per year in the mid-1990s
• As HIV prevention funding has remained constant over the last 10 years, the number of HIV infections has remained constant at 40,000 per year

Minnesota

• The first case of HIV was reported in Minnesota in 1982
• About 300 new cases of HIV infection are reported in Minnesota each year
• More than 8,100 Minnesotans have been diagnosed with HIV
• An estimated 5,566 Minnesotans are living with HIV
• More than 2,800 Minnesotans have died from AIDS
• The CDC provided Minnesota with $3,163,933 in prevention funding in 2006