New Testament Bible prophecy of the end times:
The Words of Jesus regarding the last days.
Luke 21:11 "And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines,
and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heavens.
|
|
"It's about to happen!"
(Reuters) - April 7, 2011
A gene that makes bugs highly resistant to all known antibiotics has been found in bacteria in water supplies in New Delhi used by local people for drinking, washing and cooking, scientists said today.
The NDM 1 gene, which creates what some experts describe as "super superbugs," has spread to germs that cause cholera and dysentery, and is circulating freely in other bacteria in the Indian city capital of 14 million people, "The potential international spread of ... NDM 1 is real and should not be ignored," the researchers said.
|
BBC 7 April 2011 Last updated at 02:57 GMT
Europe losing superbugs battle
By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News
European health experts are warning that antibiotic-resistant infections have reached unprecedented levels beyond our ability to fight them with existing drugs .
This year in the EU more than 25,000 people died of bacterial infections that are now able to outsmart even the newest antibiotics.
The World Health Organization says the situation has reached a critical point.
Without a concerted effort, people could be dealing with the "nightmare scenario" of a worldwide spread of untreatable infections, says the WHO.
Powerful weaponsThese superbugs are resistant to carbapenem antibiotics, which is concerning for experts because they are some of our most powerful weapons and are used for hard-to-treat infections that evade other drugs. Given the growth of travel and trade in Europe and across the world, people should be aware that until all countries tackle this, no country is safe”
The scientists are calling for urgent action by health authorities worldwide to tackle the new strains and prevent their global spread.
|
| http://www.lshtm.ac.uk |
The Return of Tuberculosis
Monday, 21 March 2011
A rapid spread of a deadly disease, says Dr Ruth McNerney, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine states that TB rates continue to increase.
New tests to detect tuberculosis must be developed urgently to win the battle against a disease which is making a deadly return. Tuberculosis (TB), a highly infectious disease which affects the lungs and is spread by coughing.
There are more TB cases in the world today than ever before in history - 14 million – and the disease kills more adults every year than any other single pathogen. It is also a major cause of infertility in women. A total of 9,040 cases of tuberculosis were reported in the UK during 2009, with the majority of disease concentrated in urban centers with a rate of 44.4 per 100,000 of the population.
The majority of patients are young adults aged 15 to 44 years (60%). “It is shocking that this disease is allowed to cause so much misery. We are not good at detecting TB and it is very infectious. The longer people go undiagnosed the more people they spread the disease to.
In some countries less than half of new cases are detected each year. In the UK delayed diagnosis also allows the disease to spread.
TB is spread by coughing and there are no public tests being made to screen for infectious people. |
|
ATLANTA, Oct. 2, 2008 (UPI)
More than 1,000,000 (1 million) people in the United States have HIV
Centers for Disease Control
One Million people in USA have HIV, but one in five are unaware of their infections, federal health officials said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released Thursday estimated that 1,106,400 people were living with HIV in the United States in 2006.
The new estimate is based on a significantly improved national HIV reporting data set, as well as several additional years of data since the prior 2003 estimate. Based on this refined data set, researchers estimate HIV prevalence increased by 11 percent, or 112,000 people, since 2003.
The percentage of people unaware of their infections has declined, from 25 percent in 2003 to 21 percent in 2006, due to both increased diagnoses and a decline in deaths among persons living with HIV. The most severe impact continues to be felt among men who have sex with men, who represented 48 percent of those living with HIV, as well as blacks — 46 percent — and Hispanics, 18 percent.
The reports said the growing number of people living with HIV underscores the critical need to reach infected individuals with testing, treatment, and prevention services to reduce the impact of the disease.
|
 Deadly amoeba infection is killing swimmers
Ray Herrera does not mince words about what his 12-year-old son, Jack, went through.
Jack Herrera is one of six people to die this year because of the naegleria fowleri amoeba.
In August, Jack returned from summer camp that included swims in Texas' Lake LBJ. Five days after coming home he was dead, killed by a microscopic amoeba.
Jack is one of six people to die this summer in the United States from the naegleria fowleri amoeba.
All were believed by health officials to have contracted an infection from the amoeba from swimming in warm, freshwater lakes, rivers or natural springs. See timeline of the sudden deaths »
The amoeba enters the human body through the nose. It then travels to the brain, where it begins to feed.
Symptoms of the amoeba's rampage begin 1 to 14 days after infection and resemble the flu. At the onset of those symptoms the amoeba victim's health swiftly declines. Video Watch how to reduce risk of contracting the amoeba »
At this point, says Dr. Kevin Sherin of the Orange County Health Department who is investigating three deaths this summer in Florida, "It's progressing very rapidly and then there's a downhill course for them there. Folks lapse into a coma, there are abnormal movements of the eyes and a terrible cascade of events leading to the actual death of parts of the brain."
Although exposure to the amoeba is usually fatal, Sherin says a cocktail of drugs can fight the amoeba if administered in time. The key, he says, is identifying the amoeba early.
In the hot summer months when the amoeba flourishes, he said, doctors need to learn to look for the symptoms of an amoeba-related illness.
"Physicians have to consider it. The public needs to consider it," Sherin said. "If you have a flu-like illness or a bad headache following swimming in a freshwater body and the temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, be aware of this."
Health officials cannot explain the spike in cases this summer, except that weather plays a factor.
"Because it's been such a hot summer, that has contributed to warmer water temperatures and lower water levels and that makes an ideal environment for the amoeba," said Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine of the Arizona Department of Health, which is investigating a death last month there tied to the amoeba.
Health officials say federal or local governments have few tools to combat the amoeba.
Even testing the water for amoeba levels, said the CDC's Dr. Michael Beach, would be of minimal benefit to swimmers.
"It would be very difficult because the testing procedures wouldn't tell you what's going on until days after people would actually be in that water." Beach said this week on CNN's American Morning.
"So, you have to assume that it's there and try and reduce these risks even further. This is an extremely rare infection, so we have to keep that in perspective as well, although it's very severe," Beach said.
In Orange County, Florida, county health department officials have rejected calls to close the lakes this summer. Dr. Kevin Sherin said the department does not have the authority to deny access to public lakes and that privately owned lake areas would remain open regardless of any action to close the lakes.
Instead, the health department has posted signs at 15 swimming and boating areas where people may face exposure to the amoeba.
advertisement
The effectiveness of the signs appears mixed. When a CNN crew recently visited a bathing area near a natural spring, the water was packed with families.
As he sunbathed near a sign warning of amoebas, John Walters seemed unconcerned about danger possibly lurking beneath the clear, inviting waters. "It's no worse I suppose than the gator signs over there and somebody did get attacked here once." |
|
|
|
The 1918 flu pandemic claimed 50 million lives, and experts in The Lancet predict the toll today would be higher than this, despite medical advances.
|
Flu 'could wipe out 62 million'Flu viruses are constantly evolving, a global flu pandemic could kill 62 million people, experts have warned.
The world's poorest nations would be hardest hit, fuelled by factors such as HIV and malaria infections, the Harvard University researchers believe.
Yet developing countries can least afford to prepare for a pandemic, which needs to be addressed, they say.
Killer strainLethal global flu epidemics tend to occur three or four times a century.
Some scientists believe a new one may be imminent and could be triggered by bird flu.
So far there have been only 258 cases of the latest strain of avian flu, H5N1, recorded in humans.
But the fear is that this strain could mutate and spread quickly and easily between people, triggering a deadly pandemic.
It is estimated between 50,000 and 700,000 people could die in the UK if such an event occurred.
When they extrapolated the mortality rates then to the global population of 2004, they estimated 51-81 million people could die and gave a median estimate of 62 million.
|
|
|
Locust plague encircles
Mexico's Cancun resort.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) Sept. 28, 2006-- Clouds of locusts have descended around the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, destroying corn crops and worrying officials in a region still recovering from the devastating fury of last year's Hurricane Wilma.
|
Traveling in dark fogs, locusts are grasshoppers that have entered a swarming phase, capable of covering large distances and rapidly stripping fields of vegetation.
"Imagine, they fly in the form of a flock. Imagine the width of a street," government official Martin Rodriguez said on Tuesday, describing the fields around Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Towns have formed pesticide-armed brigades and are winning the war against the 3-week-old plague that has left tourist areas unharmed, authorities said.
Squads wait until night to blast the flying insects as they are roosting on plants. They carry motorized backpack pumps to shoot chemicals in a fight that has affected from 2,000 to 2,500 acres (800 to 1,000 hectares) of farm land.
"It is a war, effectively," said German Parra, a senior agriculture official in the Gulf state of Quintana Roo, home of tourist resorts Cancun and Playa del Carmen.
Hot weather and an absence of mobility-limiting hurricanes have allowed the insects to breed more than normal.
The insects have focused on agricultural areas, sparing beachgoers another disaster after last year's Hurricane Wilma, which ravaged Cancun and other Caribbean coast resorts and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and lost revenue.
Destruction to corn crops has been lessened because the locusts came after most of the harvesting was finished, officials said.
Locusts, which typically come to the region in four-year cycles, are most famous as one of the 10 biblical plagues of Egypt.
Bird Flu spreads around the globe:
|
Avian Flu Virus
|
Much of the world is now on alert for outbreaks of the lethal strain of bird flu that is fast becoming a major avian killer around the world.
Millions of birds have died or been destroyed as a result of outbreaks in dozens of countries since the H5N1 strain emerged in South-East Asia in 2003, before spreading to Europe and Africa. |
|
|
|
The number of cases among humans is also rising, and by mid-February 2006, more than 90 people had died from bird flu - a mortality rate of just over 50%.
The first human deaths from H5N1 outside Asia, in January 2006, heightened concern, the World Health Organization pointed out .
Governments around the world are being encouraged to develop a global policy to try to stem the advance of the virus.
The killer virus has now hit three continents - reaching Nigeria in February 2006 and making major inroads into Europe in the same month.
The main fear is that with each new human case, the chances increase of a mutation that might create a more virulent strain that could pass from human to human.
|
|
|
|
Ready or Not, Bird Flu Is Coming to AmericaOfficials Advise Stocking Up on Provisions -- and Warn That Infected Birds Cannot Be Prevented From Flying In
By BRIAN ROSS
March 13, 2006 - In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.
Ready or not, here it comes.
It is being spread much faster than first predicted from one wild flock of birds to another, an airborne delivery system that no government can stop.
"There's no way you can protect the United States by building a big cage around it and preventing wild birds from flying in and out," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns said.
U.S. spy satellites are tracking the infected flocks, which started in Asia and are now heading north to Siberia and Alaska, where they will soon mingle with flocks from the North American flyways.
"What we're watching in real time is evolution," said Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. "And it's a biological process, and it is, by definition, unpredictable."
Industry PrecautionsAmerica's poultry farms could become ground zero as infected flocks fly over. The industry says it is prepared for quick action.
"All the birds involved in it would be destroyed, and the area would be isolated and quarantined," said Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council. "It would very much look like a sort of military operation if it came to that." Other than the farmers, everyone there has to dress as if it were a visit to a hospital operating room.
Can It Be Stopped?
Even on a model farm, ABC News saw a pond just outside the protected barns attracting wild geese. It is the droppings of infected waterfowl that carry the virus.
ABC News has obtained a mathematical projection prepared by federal scientists based on an initial outbreak on an East Coast chicken farm. Within three months, with no vaccine, almost half of the country would have the flu. That, of course, is a worst-case scenario -- but one that cannot be completely discounted.
In Europe officials are advising owners to bring their cats inside. It's advice that might soon have to be considered here in the US.
BANGKOK, Thailand 02/20/2006 -- The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.
The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said.
"There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
"Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said.
"The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill."
Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity.
It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged.
The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region.
" There is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters.
"There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared."
Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia.
"An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said.
There have been other pandemics within the last half century, all spread worldwide within a year of being detected.
The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the United States and one million worldwide after spreading from China.
In 1968, the Hong Kong flu pandemic is also said to have killed around one million.
Both pandemics were believed to be mutations of pig viruses.
It is important that countries act quickly to guard against a possible pandemic and take stock of their inventories of antiviral, Stohr said.
Health ministers and senior officials from 10 Southeast Asian countries, along with China, Japan and South Korea, are among the more than 100 people attending this week's meeting to develop strategies against flu and other infectious diseases.
Tuberculosis
|
| European Union
'faces TB crisis'Drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis in Eastern Europe and central Asia are putting EU states at risk of a deadly outbreak, health officials have warned. |
The Red Cross called it the most alarming tuberculosis situation since World War II and urged EU leaders to do more to combat the threat. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the "hottest zones" of new strains were all on the borders of the EU. Of 450,000 cases in Europe and central Asia annually, 70,000 are new strains.
'Wake up'The health groups' warnings came as they launched the Stop TB Partnership in Europe to try to fight the epidemic. Markku Niskala, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the message for EU leaders was: "Wake up, do not delay, do not let this problem get further out of hand." "The drug resistance that we are seeing now is without doubt the most alarming tuberculosis situation on the continent since World War II," he said.
The WHO has found high levels of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Baltic countries, Eastern Europe and central Asia. And studies in Latvia showed 18% of drug-resistant cases there are the most extreme variant.
"The hottest zones of drug-resistant tuberculosis are all around the periphery of the European Union," said Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO's Stop TB division.
"Investment in tuberculosis control must reflect the real emergency we are facing and be placed higher on the European agenda, especially in donor countries," he said.
About 1.7m people are dieing of tuberculosis every year.
Drug resistant TB 'more severe'
TB bacterium
Patients must complete a full course of drugs to cure TB
The problem of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis may be even more severe than previously thought, experts warn.
A survey of 79 countries by the World Health Organization published in the Lancet found TB drug resistance in virtually every one.
Particularly high levels of resistance were seen in regions of the former Soviet Union and parts of China.
About a third of the world's population is infected with the TB bug, with 8.9 million developing TB each year.
In 2004, the respiratory disease caused 1.7 million deaths worldwide.
MULTIDRUG-RESISTANT TB
Kazakhstan: 14.2% of new cases
Tomsk, Russia: 13.7%
Uzbekistan: 13.8%
Estonia: 12.2%
Liaoning province, China: 10.4%
Lithuania: 9.4%
Latvia: 9.3%
Henan province, China: 7.8%
Anti-microbial drugs have proved very effective at treating TB.
But experts believe their misuse has given the bacteria too much chance to evolve new defenses which render the drugs less effective.
The biggest problem is patients failing to complete a full course of the drugs.
Even though symptoms might have disappeared, small amounts of the bacteria may remain, and are capable of mutating.
Multi-drug-resistant TB strains are those that are resistant to at least the two most potent drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin.
More dangerous strains
Scientists have recently reported an even more worrying from - extensive drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) - which has been found among people with HIV in South Africa.
We have not been serious about controlling TB - Professor Peter Davies
TB Alert
The latest study was carried out for the Global Project on Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance Surveillance, which was set up in 1994.
From their analysis, the WHO team estimated there were 424,000 cases of multi-drug-resistant TB world-wide in 2004.
China, India and Russia accounted for half of these cases.
The researchers believe about 1% of new cases of TB are caused by multi-drug-resistant strains. However, in eight countries, including Kazakhstan and Latvia, the figure was above 6.5%.
Three countries - Andorra, Iceland and Malta - had no cases of resistance to first-line drugs, while in the United States, Hong Kong and Cuba, the cases of MDR TB showed a decline.
Lead researcher Dr Mario Raviglione said: "The findings of the Global Project emphasize the importance of implementing sound tuberculosis control activities to prevent further creation of MDR tuberculosis, and the necessity of mainstreaming high-quality treatment for MDR tuberculosis into routine tuberculosis control programs.
"Otherwise XDR-TB is bound to keep emerging as a fatal variant of TB, especially in high HIV prevalence settings."
Cases of tuberculosis (TB) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rose by 10.8% in 2005, figures show.
Lack of funds
Professor Peter Davies, of the organisation TB Alert, said TB - and in particular multidrug resistant strains of the disease - was a bigger problem than people had expected it to be.
Chikungunya Disease
|
| Feb. 24, 2006A crippling disease in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion has infected 157,000 people, one in five of the population, in the last few months health officials say. |
Chikungunya, Swahili for "that which bends up", causes high fever and severe pain, but was not thought to be fatal. However, the health minister of France, which rules the island, said this week 77 deaths may have been caused directly. He told Le Figaro newspaper on Thursday this was a "radically new situation, that was not anticipated or foreseen by any scientific theory. "We are face-to-face with a devastating epidemic which suddenly accelerated at the start of the year. Developments went beyond all the predictions made by experts," he said.
SARS
|
|
Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome(SARS) is a respiratory illness that has been reported in Asia, North America and Europe. It is an atypical pneumonia of unknown etiology, and was recognized at the end of February 2003. Symptoms include:
|
• Fever greater than 100.4°F
• Headache
• Overall feeling of discomfort
• Body aches
• Some people experience mild respiratory symptoms.
• After 2 to 7 days, SARS patients may develop dry cough and have trouble breathing.
SARS appears to be primarily spread by close person-to-person contact. Most cases have involved people who cared for or lived with someone with SARS, or who had direct contact with infectious material (such as respiratory secretions) from an infected person. Potential ways in which SARS can be spread include touching the skin of contaminated people or objects and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth. This can happen when a SARS-infected person coughs or sneezes droplets on themselves, other people or nearby surfaces.It also is possible that SARS can be spread more broadly through the air or by other ways that are currently unknown.
Mad Cow Disease (BSE):
|
| In 1986, Dr. Richard Lacey of Leeds University warned that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease; called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD in humans) was in the British meat supply, and that a wave of human deaths would hit Britain. |
He said that people should stop eating beef and that the newspapers should start warning people of the possibility of infection. Funding for Lacey's research was cancelled and he was fired from his research position at Leed's University. Dr. Lacey's warning were ignored and suppressed.
In 1987, 700 BSE infected cows were reported in Britain. By the summer of 1988, the number had climbed to 7,000. By late 1994, the figure had risen to 36,000.
In June 1988, the British government ordered the compulsory slaughter and destruction of the carcasses of all affected cattle. But it was already too late. BSE infection had already flooded into the meat supply and infected many unsuspecting British citizens.
John Collinge of St Mary's Hospital in London says that a major epidemic could still occur. "It may only involve hundreds, but it could be Europe-wide and become a disaster of biblical proportions," Dr Collinge said. "We have to face the possibility of a disaster with tens of thousands of cases."
BSE has subsequently spread across Europe to cattle in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and as of June 2001 to the Czech Republic. To date, almost 200,000 cattle are known to have contracted BSE.
Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States now exclude blood donations from anyone who has resided in Britain for 6 months or more during 1980 to 1996. In January 17, 2001, the FDA ordered a ban on blood donations in the U.S. from anyone who has lived in Britain or Ireland longer than six months, between the years 1980 and December 1996. This ban on donating blood is for life!
In an article by Lynette J. Dumble entitled "Mad Cow Disease: A Manmade Pandemic Set to Put AIDS in the Shade," 1 microbiologist Dr. Stephen Dealler states, "At the moment the number of cases of CJD we are seeing are doubling every year. If they double for a long time then the numbers are in millions...."
AIDS
|
| On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a notice on page two of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report about a strange outbreak of killer pneumonia striking homosexual men. |
From that obscure beginning, AIDS grew into the public health disaster of our time, a global phenomenon that has tested social, cultural, religious and scientific beliefs. Twenty years later -- with expensive drug therapies, but no cure or vaccine in sight -- AIDS continues to spread rapidly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Many researchers warn that the worst is yet to come.
"During the past 10 years, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States has undergone a dramatic transformation from one concentrated primarily among homosexual men to an epidemic that is now closely associated with the inner city," said David Bloom, professor of economics and demography at Harvard University's School of Public Health.
The cause of the continued spread of AIDS"Low levels of education, high levels of multiple sexual partnering, high rates of homosexuality/bisexuality and high rates of injecting drug use account for the relatively high rate of new infections among blacks and Hispanics in the U.S.," Bloom said.
The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 800,000 to 900,000 people in the United States are currently infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Each year, another 40,000 people become infected.
Although African-Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, they represent 54 percent of the new HIV infections. Hispanics, who represent about 12 percent of the population, account for 19 percent of the new infections.
"It's devastating," said Teresa Holmes, a spokeswoman for the Balm in Gilead, a New York-based organization that works with African-American churches to provide training and assistance for HIV/AIDS programs.
AIDS is the No. 1 cause of death for African-Americans aged 25-44, according to the CDC.
"One in 160 black women is infected with HIV and one in 50 black men," Holmes said. "It's not just the inner city, and it's not just the poor that are affected. You could almost lose or wipe out generations."
Thirty percent of gay black men in their 20s are infected with HIV, compared to 7 percent of white gay men, according to a recent CDC study of six large U.S. cities.
An African-American woman is 20 times more likely to contract AIDS than a white woman. African-American adolescents accounted for more than 60 percent of AIDS cases reported in 1999 among 13- to 19-year-olds.
The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that out of the 36.1 million people infected with HIV worldwide, 26 million of them live in Africa. One fourth of the adults in South Africa are believed to be living with HIV, the highest percentage in the world.
Quoting Mark Feinberg, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine and an AIDS researcher since 1984; "It's going to have a long lasting and devastating impact on the human race. The impact on our future from the AIDS epidemic is so enormous that even for someone like myself who's been involved in it for 17 years, it is impossible for me to truly conceive of the magnitude of the epidemic."
AIDS is now a Global Pandemic
November 2006 - HIV epidemic 'is getting worse'
AIDS Virus Facts 11/21/06
UNAids says there are an estimated 39,500,000 (39.5 million) people now living with HIV.
The number living with the virus has increased everywhere, with the most striking increases in East Asia and Central Asia/Eastern Europe.
Some countries, such as Uganda, are seeing a resurgence in new HIV infection rates which were previously stable or declining.
The report, which is based on disease surveillance around the world, says there were an estimated 4.3 million new HIV infections this year alone, with 2.8 million of these occurring in sub-Saharan Africa.
Forty per cent of new infections were in people aged 15 to 24-years-old.
In 2006, 2.9 million died of Aids-related illnesses.
Women at risk
In Eastern Europe/Central Asia there was a 70% increase in the number of new infections seen in 2006 compared with 2004 - 270,000 compared with 160,000.
In South-East Asia, the number of new infections rose by 15% from 2004 to 2006.
The increase is fuelled by high-risk behaviour such as injecting drug use, unprotected paid-for sex and unprotected sex between men.
Across the world, women are more likely to be affected by HIV than ever before, the report reveals.
UNAids also says the HIV epidemics in Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland are continuing to grow.
| | Estimate | Range |
People living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
| 38.6 million | 33.4-46.0 million |
Adults living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
| 36.3 million | 31.4-43.4 million |
Women living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
| 17.3 million | 14.8-20.6 million |
Children living with HIV/AIDS in 2005
| 2.3 million | 1.7-3.5 million |
People newly infected with HIV in 2005
| 4.1 million | 3.4-6.2 million |
AIDS deaths in 2005
| 2.8 million | 2.4-3.3 million |
|
More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
By the end of 2005, women accounted for 48% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 59% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people (15-24 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide - around 6,000 become infected with HIV every day.
In developing and transitional countries, 6.8 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 1.65 millionare receiving the drugs.
The number of people living with HIV rose from around 8 million in 1990 to 38.6 million in 2005, and is still growing. Around 63% of people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Regional statistics for HIV & AIDS, end of 2005
Region
|
Adults & children
living with HIV/AIDS
|
Adults & children
newly infected
|
Adult (15-49)
prevalence*
|
Deaths of
adults & children
|
Sub-Saharan Africa
|
24.5 million
|
2.7 million
|
6.1%
|
2.0 million
|
North Africa & Middle East
|
440,000
|
64,000
|
0.2%
|
37,000
|
Asia
|
8.3 million
|
930,000
|
0.4%
|
600,000
|
Oceania
|
78,000
|
7,200
|
0.3%
|
3,400
|
Latin America
|
1.6 million
|
140,000
|
0.5%
|
59,000
|
Caribbean
|
330,000
|
37,000
|
1.6%
|
27,000
|
East Europe & Central Asia
|
1.5 million
|
220,000
|
0.8%
|
53,000
|
N. America, West & Central Europe
|
2.0 million
|
65,000
|
0.5%
|
30,000
|
Global Total
|
38.6 million
|
4.1 million
|
1.0%
|
2.8 million
|
|
* Proportion of adults aged 15-49 who were living with HIV/AIDS
|
OTHER:
1968The Hong Kong flu became the third flu pandemic of the 20th century. The World Health Organization estimated that a total of 1.5 million died in the Asian and Hong Kong flu pandemics.
1957-1958The Asian flu swept around the world, making it the second flu pandemic of the century.
World wide statistics 2005:Number of people without access to safe water: 1,400,000,000
Number of people without access to adequate sanitation: 2,900,000,000
Number of children under the age of 5 who die each year from easily preventable diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and measles: 13,000,000
BANGKOK, Thailand 02/20/2006 -- The World Health Organization has issued a dramatic warning that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to seven million people.
The influenza pandemic could occur anywhere from next week to the coming years, WHO said.
"There is no doubt there will be another pandemic," Klaus Stohr of the WHO Global Influenza Program said on the sidelines of a regional bird flu meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.
"Even with the best case scenario, the most optimistic scenario, the pandemic will cause a public health emergency with estimates which will put the number of deaths in the range of two and seven million," he said.
"The number of people affected will go beyond billions because between 25 percent and 30 percent will fall ill."
Pandemics occur when a completely new flu strain emerges for which humans have no immunity.
It also comes just a few months after the first probable instance of human-to-human transmission of the bird-flu virus emerged.
The virus killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam earlier this year and led to the slaughter of millions of poultry birds across the region.
" There is a conclusion now that we are closer to the next pandemic than we have ever been before," Stohr told reporters.
"There is no reason to believe that we are going to be spared."
Stohr said if bird flu triggers the next pandemic, the virus would likely originate in Asia.
"An influenza pandemic will spare nobody. Every country will be affected," he said.
There have been other pandemics within the last half century, all spread worldwide within a year of being detected.
The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the United States and one million worldwide after spreading from China.
In 1968, the Hong Kong flu pandemic is also said to have killed around one million.
Both pandemics were believed to be mutations of pig viruses.
It is important that countries act quickly to guard against a possible pandemic and take stock of their inventories of antiviral, Stohr said.
Health ministers and senior officials from 10 Southeast Asian countries, along with China, Japan and South Korea, are among the more than 100 people attending this week's meeting to develop strategies against flu and other infectious diseases.
|
Koepcke returned to the crash scene in 1998
Koepcke soon had to board a plane again when she moved to Frankfurt in 1972
Juliane lived in the jungle and was home-schooled by her mother and father when she was 14
Juliane celebrated her school graduation ball the night before the crash
