• HIV/AIDS – More than a Health Crisis
• HIV/AIDS and Agriculture
• HIV/AIDS and Malnutrition
• HIV/AIDS and Women
• HIV/AIDS Statistics by Region

HIV/AIDS is not just another health or development problem. By its nature and effects, AIDS is unique:

• AIDS kills the most productive—and reproductively active—members of society, rendering households and societies vulnerable.
  
• HIV is socially invisible, though the ravages of AIDS are everywhere apparent. Ninety percent of those living with HIV have no access to HIV testing, making effective prevention and mitigation efforts difficult.
  
• HIV/AIDS has a very long incubation period between infection and major illness, during which the virus can be unknowingly transmitted.
  
• HIV/AIDS affects both rural and urban populations. The death of one or more income earner in a household can spur survivors to migrate between urban and rural areas in search of employment.
  
• HIV/AIDS infects people of all income levels, but the poor are the most severely affected by the pandemic. AIDS prolongs and deepens poverty.
  
• HIV/AIDS renders societies weak due to loss of human capital. Businesses located in areas with high HIV/AIDS rates suffer from high absenteeism and staff turnover, loss of institutional memory, and reduced innovation. Nurses and teachers are dying faster than they can be replaced. In Malawi, for example, 6 to 8 percent of the teaching workforce dies each year.
  
• AIDS has a direct impact on economic growth rates in the most affected developing countries. When the HIV rate in a population reaches 5 percent, per capita GDP can be expected to decline by 0.4 percent a year; when the rate reaches 15 percent, a country can expect an annual drop in GDP of more than 1 percent.
  
• By 2010, the GDP of South Africa, which represents 40 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s economic output, will be 17 percent lower than it would have been without AIDS.
  Source: International Food Policy Research Institute, AIDS and Food Security, 2002

• Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the majority of people affected by HIV/AIDS around the world. (IFPRI, HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action, 2005)
  
• Since 1985, over 7 million farmers have died of AIDS in the 27 most affected countries. (FAO, HIV/AIDS–A Rural Issue, 2005).
  
• AIDS undermines productive agricultural sectors in many developing countries by infecting and then killing many agricultural workers prematurely. As a result, labor productivity decreases, crucial assets—such as land—are eroded, and the transfer of knowledge from one generation to another is blocked. (IFPRI, Ending Hunger in Africa: Prospects for the Small Farmer, 2004).
  
• In Africa, approximately 65 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. Agriculture represents 30 to 40 percent of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP). (IFPRI, Ending Hunger in Africa: Prospects for the Small Farmer, 2004).
  
• Recent research in Kenya shows a 68 percent decline in food production following the death of a male household head. (USAID, HIV/AIDS, 2003).
  
• In settings where subsistence agriculture predominates, economic effects only scratch the surface of the total impact of HIV on livelihoods. For example, AIDS reduces long-term capacity for agricultural production, since livestock is often sold to pay for funeral expenses. Where dwelling or land rights are linked to physical presence, the death of a household head may undermine these rights since survivors, especially widows or orphans, must leave to search for alternative livelihoods. (IFPRI, AIDS and Food Security, 2002)
  

• Malnutrition and food insecurity may accelerate the spread of HIV, both by increasing exposure to the virus and by increasing the risk of infection following exposure. (IFPRI, HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action, 2005)
  
• Research in Tanzania found a 15 percent decrease in per capita food consumption in the poorest households, following the death of an HIV-infected adult. (USAID, HIV/AIDS, 2003).
  
• HIV infection, compounded by a poor diet, can rapidly lead to malnutrition. (IFPRI, AIDS and Food Security, 2002)
  
• Persons living with HIV require an extra 10 to 30 percent more energy. (IFPRI, HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action, 2005)
  
• The onset of full-blown AIDS, and even death, may be delayed in well-nourished individuals who are living with HIV. (IFPRI, AIDS and Food Security, 2002)
  
• The use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to treat people living with HIV/AIDS may be effective in curbing the spread and overall impact of the disease. Nutrition is also directly relevant to treatment—and is all the more important now that access to ARV drugs is expanding in developing countries. (IFPRI, HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action, 2005)
  
• People living with HIV/AIDS in resource-poor settings are often unable to follow food and nutrition recommendations for ARV therapy due to pre-existing malnourishment or a lack of access to nutritional foods. As a result, individuals may discontinue treatment programs, quickening the progression of the disease. (IFPRI, HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action, 2005)
  
• Simple but important food security, nutrition, and public health interventions, such as nutritional counseling, alongside and as a part of HIV/AIDS treatment initiatives are critical to effectively combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic. (IFPRI, HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action, 2005)
  

• Women, especially younger ones, are biologically more susceptible to contracting HIV than men in a given sexual encounter. In addition, the low social status of women in the developing world magnifies their vulnerability to contracting HIV. (IFPRI, AIDS and Food Security, 2002).
  
• Driven by poverty and the desire for a better life, many women and girls find themselves using sex as a commodity in exchange for food, goods, services, money or other basic necessities, and often with older men. This leads to severe unequal prevalence rates in such places as South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, where young women are three to six times more likely to be infected with HIV than young men. (UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update, 2004).
  
• In sub-Saharan Africa, women are considerably more likely—at least 1.2 times—to be infected with HIV than men. Among young people aged 15-24, this ratio is highest: young women are 2.5 times more likely to be infected than young men. (UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update 2003; 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic)
  
• Upon the death of an HIV-infected spouse, women are stigmatized and driven from the communities, losing all property and other assets, a condition which drives them further into poverty and vulnerability to contracting HIV. (IFPRI, Women: Still the Key to Food and Nutrition Security, 2005).
  
• A study in Namibia found that 44 percent of widows lost cattle, 28 percent lost small livestock, and 41 percent lost farm equipment in disputes with in-laws after the death of an HIV-infected husband. (FAO, Namibia—Women, Agriculture and Rural Development, 1996).
  
• HIV-positive women have a higher incidence of pre-term and low birth weight deliveries. As a result, HIV-exposed infants may start life with impaired nutrition. (FANTA, Nutrition and HIV/AIDS, 2004).
  

• AIDS is one of the greatest threats to global development and stability. Since the start of the epidemic, more than 60 million people worldwide have been infected with HIV—equivalent to the population of France or Britain. Twenty million have died. (IFPRI, AIDS and Food Security, 2002)
  

  East Asia:

• In East Asia, the number of reported infections has increased significantly in recent years, especially in China, which had an estimated 180,000 new HIV infections in 2002-2003. China accounts for more than 90 percent of all HIV and AIDS cases in the region. (UNAIDS, 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic)
  

  Latin America and the Caribbean:

• Latin America is characterized by highly concentrated epidemics, most notably in South America, where Brazil is home to the vast majority of people living with HIV in the region. (UNAIDS, 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic)
  
• In the Caribbean, AIDS is well-entrenched, particularly in the Bahamas, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago. In 2003, 52,000 people in the region were newly infected with HIV. (UNAIDS, 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic)
  

  South and Southeast Asia:

• The AIDS picture in South Asia remains dominated by the epidemic in India. In 2003, approximately 5.1 million people in the country were living with HIV, and serious epidemics are underway in several states. (UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update 2003; 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic)
  
• In Southeast Asia, Thailand and Cambodia have brought major epidemics under control, but there are emerging epidemics in Myanmar and elsewhere. (IFPRI, AIDS and Food Security, 2002)
  

  Sub-Saharan Africa:

• Of the 39 million people infected with HIV around the world, more than 25 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, where in some countries one in three adults is infected. (IFPRI, HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action, 2005)
  
• Seven sub-Saharan African countries—Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—have adult HIV infection rates above 20 percent. (UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update 2003; 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic)