Key findings
- This report presents some of the highlights of the Vancouver AIDS Conference, with a particular focus on epidemiology.
- At a satellite symposium held just prior to the Conference, the global cumulative number of infections in adults was reported to have more than doubled since the beginning of the decade, from about 10 million cases in 1990 to 25.5 million cases in July 1996. In 1995, 2.7 million new cases of HIV infection were acquired: 1.4 million in sub-Saharan Africa and 1 million in South East Asia. By July 1996, 21.8 million adults and children were living with HIV infection or AIDS, with over 90% in developing countries. Of adults living with HIV infection, 12.2 million (58%) were males and 8.8 million (42%) were females.
- In many industrialised countries, particularly those in which the epidemic hasbeen due predominantly to sexual transmission between men, annual AIDS incidence has reached a plateau. An increasing proportion of HIV and AIDS diagnoses among women was also observed.
- The prevalence of HIV infection among pregnant women was 0.3 per 1,000 in Canada, 3 per 1,000 in Brazil, 1.2 per 1,000 in the United States, 20 per 1,000 in Thailand and 300 per 1,000 in Zimbabwe.
- To date, 10 subtypes of HIV-1 have been identified. In a sample of 215 cases of asymptomatic HIV infection in Thailand in 1994 – 1995, the majority (81%) of infections were subtype E.