Most people in the developed countries of the world fear aids deeply, however their fear should be nothing compared to the Aid/HIV rates of those in developing countries, especially in the southern part of the African Continent. It’s crazy to think that almost 4 in every 10 adults in the Country of Swaziland, located in Southern Africa have Aids or HIV.
Various stats about Africa:
- Sub-Saharan Africa has 10 percent of the world’s population but is home to more than 60 percent of all people living with HIV and AIDs
- In 2005, 3.2 million people in the region became newly infected, while 2.4 million adults and children died of AIDs
- This means that more people are being infected each years then are dying, at a 4:3 ratio
Likelihood of contacting the HIV virus per 10,000 exposures:
Blood Transfusion 9,000 - 90% chance
Childbirth 2,500 - 25% Chance
Needle-sharing injection drug use 67 - 0.67% Chance
Percutaneous needle stick 30 - 0.3% Chance
Receptive anal intercourse 50 - 0.5% Chance
Insertive anal intercourse 6.5 - 0.065% Chance
Receptive penile-vaginal intercourse 10 - 0.1% Chance
Insertive penile-vaginal intercourse 5 - 0.5% Chance
Receptive oral intercourse 1 - 0.01% Chance
Insertive oral intercourse 0.5 - 0.005% Chance
Despite these rather unrisky numbers, it is amazing that so many countries have over 15% of their adult population carrying the virus. Here are the stats of the top 8 countries listed by % of adults with the virus, and then the United States. Note that these are all countries in poor economic standing among the world:
Swaziland
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 220,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 38.8%
Botswana
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 350,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 37.3%
Aids in terms of a Percentage of population:

Lesotho
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 320,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 28.9%
Zimbabwe
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 1,800,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 24.6%
South Africa
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 5,300,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 21.5%
Namibia
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 210,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 21.3%
Zambia
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 920,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 16.5%
Malawi
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 900,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 14.2%
United States
People Living with Hiv/Aids: 984,000
Percent of Countries Population with Hiv/Aids: 0.6%
So you may ask why are we, a Money related blog discussing this? It’s simple, the world is ignoring the problem and not sending over enough money.