ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME(AIDS)

25 years of AIDS

Year 2001:  Centers for Disease Control in US report that incidence of HIV in people older than 50 is rising twice as fast as in younger ones.

Year 2003:  UNAIDS and WHO launch 3 by 5 initiative to increase number of people, in low and middle income countries having access to anti-retroviral therapy, from 400,000 to 3 million by 2005.  An AIDS relief of USD15 billion announced by US President George Bush.

Year 2004:  Centers for Disease Control estimate that 415,193 Americans are living with AIDS, of which 4 in 10 are African-Americans.

Year 2005:  World leaders pledge to come as close as possible to universal treatment by 2010.  The 3 by 5 initiative by UNAIDS and WHO reaches a total of only 1.3 million persons.

Year 2006:  Pope Benedict XVI asks Vatican officials to study whether condoning use of condoms to stop spread of HIV AIDS is consistent with church's pro-life stance.  The biggest impact of this would be seen in Africa which is seen as the epicentre of AIDS pandemic, where more than 18 million children are estimated to be orphaned by end of 2010, an increase of over 20% over the next four years.

Today AIDS has claimed 25 million lives and infected another 40 million people of whom half of them are women.

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