World Aids Day

1 December is World AIDS Day for 2012.  This year's theme is "HIV is still here". The World AIDS Day website is useful for lots of up to date information on the disease, including the fact that although the number of new HIV diagnoses in Australia has been stable for the past five years, there were still 1137 new infections diagnosed in 2011, an increase of 8.2% from 2010.

A useful article on recent global trends in HIV/AIDS was published this year in the journal AIDS.  "The evolving epidemiology of HIV/AIDS" by de Cock and others describes the challenge of the epidemic, with about 34 million people living with HIV worldwide, and nine countries in southern Africa accounting for less than 2% of the world's population representing about one third of global HIV infections.  Ask at your health library for a copy of the full text of the article.
AIDS 26 (10), 19 June 2012 : 1205-13.