Trends in HIV/AIDS infection: Beyond current statistics

At the end of 1999, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimated that about 50 million people worldwide, 14 million of whom had already died, had been infected with HIV. The global distribution of HIV is uneven, with developing countries bearing a disproportionate burden of infection. About 70% of all HIV infections occur in sub‐Saharan Africa. While stabilisation of the epidemic has been observed in a few countries, HIV continues to spread in most parts of the world, with 5.6 million new infections in 1999 alone. Trends in infection between countries and regions highlight the complexity of the HIV epidemics and the enormous prevention potential that still exists in most countries.