AIDS in the developing world: an epidemiologic overview

The pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is rapidly becoming a tropical disease. Sub-Saharan Africa alone currently accounts for approximately 60% of the estimated > 11 million infections worldwide. In Africa the virus is transmitted heterosexually and in many areas is now widely dispersed in the general population. Spread of HIV in Asia has been more recent, with current estimates of 2 million infections, but has been very rapid in South and Southeast Asia. In Thailand extensive transmission of the virus has occurred over the last 5 years. Initially, infections were seen in users of intravenous drugs and in commercial sex workers; now, however, HIV has spread to the general population. Recent, although incomplete, data from India suggest an epidemic curve reminiscent of the early epidemic in Africa and Thailand. With this rapid spread of the infection, there may be as many as 26 million infections--most in developing countries--by the year 2000.