| Facts about HIV/AIDS Sub-Saharan Africa
· Three quarters of all people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. Ninety percent dont know they have the disease.
· Only 30,000 Africans have access to necessary antiretroviral drugs.
· Eleven million children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. UNICEF predicts this number will double by 2010.
· About 90 per cent of these orphaned children are looked after by their extended family mainly grandmothers.
· In Zambia, one adult in five is living with HIV/AIDS. Life expectancy has fallen from 58 to 37 in the past 15 years.
· Botswana has the highest HIV/AIDS incidence. Between 35 and 40 per cent of everyone aged 15 to 49 is infected.
Canada
· In the developed world, antiretroviral drugs have made HIV/AIDS a manageable, chronic condition.
· The Canadian government has promised to amend patent legislation to permit the manufacture and export of generic drugs, at very low price.
· The World Health Organization is campaigning to get three million people most of them in Africa into treatment by 2005 at an annual cost of about $150 per person.
Ontario
· The HIV epidemic in Ontario has not stabilized.
· A two-week supply of medication to manage HIV/AIDS costs about $1,600.
· According to the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention, young women 14-24 are the fastest growing group of HIV/AIDS cases in the Black community in Toronto.
Women
Women have the fastest growing rate of HIV infection in Canada.
More than 26 per cent of new diagnoses in Ontario in 2001 were women.
Women account for more than a quarter of new HIV infections nationally, compared to less than 10 percent a decade ago.
Women in Canada tend to be excluded from HIV/AIDS clinical trials and research.
Youth
· About 10.3 million people aged 15-24 live with HIV/AIDS. Globally, half of new infections are among young people.
· In Ontario, about 22,000 people are HIV-positive. About 17 per cent are 18-29. About 61 per cent of these live in the Greater Toronto Area.
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