We have all heard about the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the figures speak for themselves. According to the United Nations, 67% of all people who were living with HIV in the World during 2007 were living in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 75% of all AIDS-related deaths also happened in that part of the World. Those figures were bolstered by an estimated 2 million new infections throughout the year, bringing the overall total to 22 million people. South Africa remains the most infected country on the planet with almost 6 million people infected, and the nine Southern African countries combined accounted for over a third of the World's HIV infections, and almost 40% of all AIDS-related deaths. There are only limited statistics available for North Africa, but Sudan in particular has seen infections rise to 320,000.

Whilst the cause and nature of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) remains a mystery, our scientists tell us that HIV is a member of the retrovirus family, and that it often leads to Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). We are told that AIDS then causes our immune system to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections, making it one of the biggest dangers for us humans in the present day, although the predicted outbreak amongst the general heterosexual population in most industrialised countries has failed to materialise, and science has yet to explain why.

Testing on a person who is suspected to be HIV+ is only ever done by measuring the levels of HIV anti-bodies in their system, rather than by measuring the amount of the actual HIV virus which is in their bodies. This is because scientists have no accurate way of testing the HIV virus itself yet, and to further confuse our knowledge of the virus, the levels of HIV anti-bodies - which occur naturally in every persons bodies in tiny quantities - that must be reached for a positive diagnosis (HIV+), can differ greatly from country to country, and even from state to state in the US. For example, this means you could be HIV+ in some American cities, but be considered not infected in other US cities or abroad. But overall, if you have much more of these anti-bodies in your system than would normally occur, healthcare professionals presume that they are occuring in such numbers due to an attack from the HIV virus itself, so therefore you are HIV+.

Every two years the United Nations UNAIDS agency releases a report which gauges the extent of the AIDS pandemic, and the figures quoted above are mostly taken from the last such report, which was published in 2008. It estimates that over 33 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in 2007, and that over 2 million died in that year, including over 300,000 children. Over three-quarters of AIDS-related deaths occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa, where testing is virtually non-existent in many countries, and where similar numbers of people would be expected to die from malnutrition, which often exhibits the exact same symptoms as AIDS. Along with those who are living in poverty throughout the World, these apparent high prevalence rates of HIV infected-people only co-exists within the male gay community, and amongst those who take intravaenous recreational drugs, which has lead to many people questioning this disease, and how it can be so selective.

Major questions also surround the Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and treatments - which are prescribed to help prolong the lives of those who are considered to be HIV+, and to help ease the symptoms of AIDS - due to some of their side-effects being almost a mirror image of the symptoms one would experience when dying from AIDS. Some other people believe that HIV has always existed and is linked to the breakdown of the body due to malnutrition or drugs, or that it was introduced through some government-sponsored program in the mid-twentieth century, or that it doesn't exist at all. The Duesberg hypothesis being the most famous of those theory's which proclaims that HIV does not cause AIDS. What is clear, is that the ridiculous amounts of money which is spent on research, medications and treatments for those who are infected with the HIV virus, has not lead to any major breakthroughs to this day.

The next 'UNAIDS Report on the global AIDS epidemic' is due out in late 2010.