Ever since the inception of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) outbreak, over 70 million people have contracted the deadly disease, while about 35 million people have died.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) 36.7 million persons are living with HIV globally.
While the burden of the epidemic continues to vary considerably between countries and regions, an estimated 0.8% of adults aged 15–49 years worldwide are living with HIV.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains most sternly affected, with nearly 1 in every 25 adults (4.2%) living with the disease and accounting for nearly two-thirds of the people living with HIV worldwide.
The HIV is a lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that causes HIV infection and over time degenerates to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). AIDS is a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive.
Without persistent treatment, average survival period after infection with HIV is estimated to be between 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype. In more common cases, HIV is a sexually transmitted infection and occurs by physical contact with or transfer of blood, semen and vaginal fluids.
Non-sexual transmission can occur from an infected mother to her toddler through breast milk. A HIV infected mother can transmit the disease to her baby both during pregnancy and childbirth due to exposure to her blood or vaginal fluid.
Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells.
