Quick Facts on HIV and AIDS

CRS and HIV

• Worldwide, the Catholic Church provides care for one out of every four people living with HIV. (source: Caritas Internationalis)
  
  
• CRS began supporting its first HIV project in Bangkok, Thailand in 1986.
  
  
• In 2007, we directly served more than 4 million people.
  
  
• Through the AIDSRelief project, CRS helps provide lifesaving antiretroviral therapy to more than 132,000 people living with HIV in nine countries; more than 10,000 are children. An additional 216,000 people who do not yet require medication are receiving other kinds of care.

Global Statistics

• UNAIDS estimates that 33.2 million people globally are living with HIV. This number includes an estimated 2.5 million children under the age of 15 years.
  
  
• In 2007 an estimated 2.5 million people were infected with HIV, including 420,000 children less than 15 years of age. This is about 6,800 people developing new HIV infections every day.
  
  
• An estimated 2.1 million people died as a result of AIDS-related illnesses during 2007. This number represents about 5,700 AIDS-related deaths every day, mostly as a result of inadequate access to HIV prevention and treatment services.
  
  
• Seventy-two percent of AIDS-related deaths occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa, which UNAIDS says illustrates the unmet need for antiretroviral therapy.
  
  

Treatment

• HIV testing is available to only one in eight people who want it.
  
  
• The number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy in low- and middle-income countries has increased tenfold since the end of 2001, to almost 3 million.
  
  
• However, only 31 percent of people in need of treatment are currently receiving it.
  
  
• Children living with HIV are only about one-third as likely to receive treatment as adults living with HIV.

Statistics are from 2008 AIDS Epidemic Update-UNAIDS/WHO unless otherwise noted.