AIDS is one of the world's most deadly contagious diseases. It has become the number one killer in Africa, overtaking malaria. Because of how it is transmitted, many patients have fallen victim to prejudice, but it has also led to innovative campaigns which have raised awareness around sexual health and gender relations. 
HIV/AIDS: Glossary There is still no cure for Aids, but a combination of various drugs can reduce the virus which causes the virus to virtually undetectable levels. Some people mistakenly believe the drugs cure Aids and this has led to fears that people are becoming complacent about the disease.
Aids stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. People with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) can look and feel well.
As the virus attacks the immune system, an infected person will be open to a large number of illnesses. This means there are a wide variety of symptoms.
HIV usually leads to Aids, which is diagnosed when a person has developed one of several opportunistic diseases associated with the virus as well as underlying immune problems.
The diseases include pneumonia, Kaposi's sarcoma - a form of purplish skin cancer not normally seen in young people before the advent of Aids - and dementia. How is it transmitted?
HIV is relatively difficult to transmit as it does not live for long outside the body.
It is carried in the semen, vaginal fluids, breast milk and blood.
The main transmission routes are through sharing needles, sex, blood transfusions, transplants, getting infected fluid into open wounds and breast feeding.
High risk groups or behaviour
Certain groups are believed to be at higher risk of developing the virus. These include those who share needles and children who are breast fed with infected milk.
As the disease began in the West in the gay community, gay men are at higher risk than heterosexuals.
Sex workers and those who have multiple sexual partners are also at higher risk than average. People with other sexually transmitted diseases are also thought to be more likely to contract HIV than others.
What is the treatment?
If you want to know if you have HIV, you should contact your doctor or a sexually transmitted disease clinic about a blood test. They will usually suggest counselling before you take an HIV test to make sure you are prepared for all the implications of the result, including the impact on life insurance and mortgages. Aids organisations have reported that, in some cases, just taking the test can be enough for some companies to refuse you insurance or a mortgage.
If you test positive for the virus, there are a range of treatments you may be offered. The most popular is combination therapy, a cocktail of different anti-Aids drug, including AZT. The drugs can have powerful side effects, such as anaemia, and not everyone responds well to them.
People who take the numerous drugs have to stick to a rigid regime, but they have been shown to reduce the virus and rebuild the immune system. In some cases, the virus has been reduced to undetectable levels. However, doctors say it is too early to say yet how long they will last.
Stigma
Because of the way HIV is transmitted and the groups it has affected most - including drug users, gay men and people immigrant communities, it has attracted much media attention and prejudice. This has often made it hard for sufferers to come forward for testing. The all-parliamentary group on Aids says tackling the stigma of the disease is vital for reducing its impact.
Reducing the risk
The main advice from health promotion units includes using a condom for sexual intercourse. Injecting drug users are advised not to share needles. In many areas of the UK, health officials operate a needle exchange scheme where clean needles can be obtained free of charge.
History of the disease
The search for the origins of Aids has been dogged by political controversy.
According to the latest theory, published in Nature magazine in February and widely supported by leading experts in the field, the Aids virus first passed into people from a particular sub-species of chimp in the Central African rainforest.
Human infection occurred in the first half of the century as a result of people hunting and eating the chimps, the scientists believe. This practice continues today.
The international team, led by Dr Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama, say genetic tests show the main human virus, HIV-1, is closely related to a virus that infects chimps but does not make them sick.
They are now studying how common the virus is in chimps in the wild, but they face problems because the sub-species in which they found the virus - the Pan troglodytes troglodytes - is endangered.
Experts say there is evidence that HIV may have transferred to humans throughout history, but only became an epidemic in the 20th century, possibly because of increased sexual promiscuity, civil unrest and movement of people to cities.
Last year, researchers said they had found the first known case of Aids - in a Bantu man who died in 1959 in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and home of the sub-species of chimps.
Aids in Africa
Aids is the biggest threat to Africa's development, according to the United Nations.
The reason is the large numbers of people in key roles who are dying: teachers; farmers; health-workers; civil servants and young professionals.
Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the region worst affected by HIV and Aids, according to the UNAids and World Health Organization's latest report on the disease.
It says there were 3.4 million new HIV infections in Africa in 2001, almost 70% of the global total.
Glimmer of hope
This brings to 28.1 million the number of Africans now living with HIV/Aids.
Within the continent, Southern Africa is hardest-hit, with life-expectancy shrinking rapidly.
In Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland, people now die, on average, before their 40th birthday. Without Aids, they would live until at least 60.
Uninformed partners
Unicef says that more than 70% of young girls in Somalia and more than 40% in Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone have not heard of the disease.
Even in relatively peaceful Kenya, a study by the Population Council said that more than half of the women they surveyed who had acquired HIV had not told their partners, because they feared being beaten or abandoned.
Aids is already holding back economic growth in more than half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, says the UN.
Fewer farmers
A survey of 15 firms in Ethiopia has shown that over a five-year period, 53% of staff illness was Aids-related.
In Burkina Faso, 20% of rural families have cut back their farming activities because of Aids.
And the pandemic's effects will be felt long into the future.
In Swaziland, the UN says that school enrolment has fallen 36% due to Aids, largely because girls are frequently taken out of classrooms to care for sick relatives.
In 1999, 860,000 African children lost their teacher to Aids.
The report recommends reducing the economic effects of Aids through fast-track training for the replacements of those who die.
In the twenty-five years since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, approximately 65 million people worldwide have become infected with HIV, including more than 25 million who already have died. If more is not done to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is on course to be one of the worst in history, with millions more people estimated to become infected by the end of this decade. The HIV/AIDS pandemic presents political, economic, public health, social and scientific challenges to nations worldwide.
State of the Pandemic
As of the end of 2006, 39.5 million people were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. An estimated 4.3 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2006 and nearly three million people died of AIDS-related causes in 2006. Women represent a growing proportion of people living with HIV/AIDS and now comprise nearly half (48%) of adults estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. Young people under the age of 25 are estimated to account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide.
According to UNAIDS, there is no single AIDS epidemic worldwide. Instead, many regions and countries are experiencing diverse epidemics, some of which remain in their early stages. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most-affected region in the world as measured by HIV/AIDS prevalence rates, followed by the Caribbean. There also is growing concern about the "next wave" of the epidemic emerging in parts of Eastern Europe and Asia.
Access to needed services remains low overall and uneven around the world. Although access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has more than quadrupled since December 2003 in low- and middle-income countries, only 24% of people living with HIV/AIDS in need of ARVs were estimated to be receiving treatment as of June 2006. This represents 1.65 million of the estimated 6.8 million people in need of antiretroviral treatment in these countries. Access to prevention services also is low, with fewer than one in five people at risk of HIV infection estimated to have access in low and middle-income countries.
Worldwide, financial resources for addressing HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries have increased notably over time, but a significant resource gap remains. UNAIDS estimates that spending on HIV/AIDS rose from US$300 million in 1996 to US$8.3 billion in 2005, and is projected to reach US$8.9 billion in 2006 and US$10 billion in 2007. However, current spending falls far short of what is needed to respond to the epidemic –- resource needs are projected to be $15 billion in 2006, rising to $22 billion by 2008. Sustaining and increasing current efforts to meet the need remain significant challenges in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Source: BBC Health, UNAIDS
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