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Epidemiology of HIV Infection and AIDS

Past, Present and Future

  • Review Article
  • Epidemiology
  • Published:
Disease Management & Health Outcomes

Summary

The HIV/AIDS pandemic remains volatile and has become immensely complex. It is now a mosaic composed of a multitude of epidemics, which can be distinguished on the basis of: time of introduction of HIV; predominant modes of transmission; geography; age, sex, socioeconomic or behavioural characteristics of the populations most affected; rapidity of or potential for HIV spread; and availability of resources for prevention and care.

From a global perspective, the pandemic disproportionately affects the developing world. HIV continues to spread at a diminished rate in the industrialised world and an increased rate in most parts of the resource-poor world. HIV increasingly affects people who, for reasons of race, sex, behaviour or social and economic status, are marginalised and have lesser access to preventive and healthcare services. As HIV epidemics spread and mature, their social, economic and demographic effects, particularly in the developing world, will continue to create great burdens on individuals, communities and countries, and may challenge the stability of entire regions.

Current evidence of the effectiveness of HIV prevention and recent progress achieved in the development of new therapies provide the scientific basis on which an expanded response to growing prevention and care needs can be built. Even as prevention and treatment options improve, the human and economic costs of the pandemic will continue to be felt by individuals, families and loved ones, communities, countries and regions throughout the world.

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  1. Section of Infectious Diseases, AIDS Program, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Frederick L. Altice & Gerald H. Friedland

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  1. Frederick L. Altice
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  2. Gerald H. Friedland
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Correspondence to Frederick L. Altice.

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Altice, F.L., Friedland, G.H. Epidemiology of HIV Infection and AIDS. Dis Manage Health Outcomes 1, 304–322 (1997). https://doi.org/10.2165/00115677-199701060-00004

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