World View : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

<< Previous | Next >>  

Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases. 
        
  
    
    
      
     
 Combating disease
          
     Epidemic diseases exact a huge toll in human suffering and lost opportunities for development. Poverty, armed conflict, and natural disasters contribute to the spread of disease and are made worse by it. 

     In Africa the spread of HIV/AIDS has reversed decades of improvements in life expectancy and left millions of children orphaned. It is draining the supply of teachers and eroding the quality of education.

     There are 300–500 million cases of malaria each year, leading to more than 1 million deaths. Nearly all the cases (almost 90 percent) occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, and most deaths from malaria are among children younger than five years old.

     Tuberculosis kills some 2 million people a year, most of them 15–45 years old. The disease is spreading more rapidly because of the emergence of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis; the spread of HIV/AIDS, which reduces resistance to tuber-culosis; and the growing number of refugees and displaced people.
    
      
     

        
 While Sub-Saharan Africa struggles, HIV/AIDS spreads in other regions 
Adult (ages 15–49) HIV prevalence rate (%)

           
HIV has infected more than 60 million people worldwide. Each day 14,000 people are newly infected, more than half of them under age 25. At the end of 2004, 37 million adults and 2 million children were living with HIV/AIDS—more than 95 percent of them in developing countries and 70 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The proportion of adults living with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa has stabilized—not because the epidemic has been halted, but because the death rate now equals the rate of new cases. While prevalence rates are lower in other regions, the numbers are growing. There were almost a million new cases in South and East Asia, where more than 7 million people now live with HIV/AIDS.

Source: World Bank staff estimates based on UNAIDS data.
                  

    
 The risk to women is growing
Ratio of female to male HIV prevalence rates, ages 15–24, 2001
    

Source: World Bank staff estimates.
     

     For social and physiological reasons, women and girls are more vulnerable to HIV infection than are men and boys. Women make up slightly less than half of adults living with HIV/AIDS, but where the epidemic is spreading, prevalence rates are rising fastest among young women. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa young women are more than three times as likely as young men to be infected. This points to a failure to provide women with the knowledge and services needed to avoid infections.
              

        
 The risk of tuberculosis grows for the most vulnerable
Incidence of tuberculosis (per 100,000 people)
              

Source: World Bank staff estimates
                 

    Each year there are 8 million new cases of tuberculosis—3 million in South and East Asia, 2 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, and more than a quarter million in countries of the former Soviet Union. 
     The disease has spread fastest in poor countries with ineffective health systems. Poorly managed tuberculosis programs allow drug-resistant strains to spread. The World Health Organization has developed a treatment strategy—DOTS—that emphasizes positive diagnosis followed by a course of treatment and follow-up care. DOTS has proven successful, but many cases of tuberculosis still go undetected or untreated.
             

             
 In Africa AIDS is leaving millions of children orphaned
Children losing both parents (millions)
                 

Source: UNAIDS.

                   

     AIDS is an increasing cause of death in young children, but it is also leaving millions of children orphaned. By the end of 2003, 15 million children worldwide, 12 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, had lost one or both parents to AIDS.

     In Sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic is most widespread, the number of children who have lost both parents is increasing rapidly. These children are particularly vulnerable to disease and neglect, creating an unprecedented social problem.

           

              
 Young children bear the burden of malaria
Malaria deaths by age and location, 2000 (per 100,000)
                 

           

Source: WHO and UNICEF 2003.

                   

     Malaria is a disease of poverty and a cause of poverty. About 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, where a million people die each year, most of them children under five and most poor. In Zambia malaria prevalence is almost three times higher among the poorest 20 percent as among the wealthiest. Malaria has slowed economic growth in Africa by an estimated 1.3 percent a year (World Bank 2001). Insecticide-treated bed nets are effective in preventing new infections but are not widely available. With the emergence of drug-resistant strains, new means of treatment and prevention are urgently needed.

           

While Sub-Saharan Africa struggles, HIV/AIDS spreads in other regions

               

The risk to women is growing

           

The risk of tuberculosis grows for the most vulnerable

           

In Africa AIDS is leaving millions of children orphaned

           

Young children bear the burden of malaria