Around half of all new HIV/Aids infections each year are people under the age of 25, with 6,000 new infections a day — one every 15 seconds — according to a new report by the United Nations Aids agency UNAids.

This group of 15- to 24-year olds has never known a world without HIV/Aids, and now bears the greatest burden of the disease.

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are among the countries that account for 89 per cent of all new HIV infections in the world.

The report shows that these young people are vulnerable to HIV/Aids for numerous reasons like their age, physical, emotional, financial and psychological state.

These factors are intensified in times of war and poverty. “For example, impoverished families are unable to educate their children or provide good medical care. In the absence of school, the young people become more prone to risky behaviour,” said the report.

“Despite the fact that HIV/Aids is mostly affecting the youth, they have as a group have been left out, which has meant that the virus has continued to spread, and shows no signs of abating.”

Also in some countries where national sex education programmes are widespread, social taboos often prevent the youth from getting the message. For example, in conservative and predominantly Muslim societies, sex education and the use of condoms is forbidden and blamed for promoting promiscuity.

The report shows that nearly three million young people (15–24 years) in sub-Saharan Africa live with HIV — three-quarters of the HIV-positive total in that age group worldwide. Another 2.9 million children (0-14 years) also live with HIV, of whom 75 per cent receive no treatment.

READ: WHO: Aids now the number one killer of adolescents in Africa

However, young women contract HIV more often and at younger ages than men, and rates of HIV infection more than double between adolescent girls (5.6 per cent) and young women (17.4 per cent).  Seven out of 10 young people do not have correct information about how HIV is transmitted.

This according to the report is because young women in Africa tend to be less educated and poorer than young men, thus making them less aware of the risks. Also, women are not in charge of making decisions about their sexual health, or properly protect themselves against HIV.

Milestone

Activists are celebrating what they see as a pretty major milestone in efforts to combat the deadly virus — for the first time in the past year, the number of HIV patients who started receiving medication was greater than those newly infected with the virus, according to the ONE Campaign.

That marks a “tipping point” in global efforts to fight a disease that’s killed about 40 million people worldwide since it was first reported a little more than 30 years ago, the campaign declared.

However, more progress is still needed. Though global funding for HIV/Aids hit an all-time high of $19.1 billion in 2013, that’s still at least $3 billion less than what UNAids says is needed each year to control the virus.

And HIV is increasingly concentrated among harder-to-reach populations, including men who have sex with men, female sex workers, injection drug users and adolescent girls, according to the report.

United Nations data shows that in 2013, 35 million people were living with HIV, 2.1 million people were newly infected with the virus and about 1.5 million people died of Aids. By far the greatest part of the HIV/Aids burden is in sub-Saharan Africa.

While Aids mortality in the general population is decreasing, it has increased in young people. Populations at higher risk of acquiring HIV who often live on the margins of society — including men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, and people who use drugs — are not benefiting equally from the gains of the Aids response. 

In many places, punitive laws and policies still impede access to basic services, and protective laws and policies are missing in action. Stigma, discrimination, gender inequality, and sexual and gender-based violence continue to hinder evidence and rights-based HIV responses.

UNAids said that, by June 2014, about 13.6 million people globally had access to Aids drugs, a dramatic improvement on the five million who were getting treatment in 2010.  

However, a new study by scientists from the University of Oxford said that HIV is evolving to become less deadly and less infectious. The scientists say that the virus is being “watered down” as it adapts to our immune systems.

Longer life

“It is taking longer for the HIV infection to cause Aids and this change in the virus may help efforts to contain the pandemic,” said the researchers.

Some virologists suggest the virus may eventually become “almost harmless” as it continues to evolve.

The findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also suggested anti-retroviral drugs were forcing HIV to evolve into milder forms. It showed the drugs would primarily target the nastiest versions of HIV and encourage the milder ones to thrive.

“Twenty years ago it used to take 10 years for the HIV infection to cause Aids, but in the past 10 years in Africa, for example, that might have increased to 12.5 years — a sort of incremental change, but in the big picture that is a rapid change,” said the study report. “As time passes this could stretch further and further and in the future result in people being asymptomatic for decades.”

However, the group did caution that even a watered-down version of HIV was still dangerous and could cause Aids.