Estimates of the number of people with the AIDS virus have been dramatically overstated in many countries because of errors in statistical models and a possible undetected decline in the pandemic, specialists say. In many countries analysts are cutting the estimates of HIV prevalence by half or more.
In Rwanda, for example, a new United Nations estimate due out next month will put HIV prevalence at about 5 per cent, down from more than 11 per cent four years ago. In Haiti, a recent unpublished study by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has found, HIV prevalence was less than 3 per cent, compared with the UN's most recent estimate of 6 per cent.
Several AIDS specialists said they thought the current estimate of 40 million people living with AIDS worldwide was inflated by 25 to 50 per cent, based on household surveys in nearly a dozen countries. That would go against assertions by the UN's specialist body UNAIDS that the disease is relentlessly on the rise.
On the upside, that's possibly 20 million fewer people with HIV and AIDS, which is good.
On the downside, that still leaves 20 million or so with the disease. The equivalent of something like 7 percent of the US population, if you will.
Posted by iain at June 21, 2004 12:23 PM
