HIV/AIDS: Risk Factors

HIV crosses all cultures, national borders and religions. No one is immune, and the virus continues to spread among all segments of the human population at a rapid rate.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the area hardest hit by AIDS, 25 million people are living with HIV — two-thirds of the world's cases. Infection rates for women in this region are rising much faster than they are for men, and young girls are bearing the brunt of the disease. Southern Africa is also home to 12 million of the 15 million children worldwide who have lost one or both parents to AIDS. That number is expected to reach more than 18 million by 2010. The outlook for children in African nations with the highest rates of HIV infection is particularly grim: Their life expectancy is less than 40 years.

But AIDS is not an "African problem." Few areas of the world have been spared. India, Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia all stand on the brink of rapidly emerging epidemics. Some of the sharpest increases have been in China, Indonesia and Viet Nam, which together reported over 1 million new cases of HIV infection in 2003. Home to 60 percent of the world's population, the rapid spread of the virus in Asia is cause for great concern.

HIV infection is also on the rise in the United States and Western Europe. Another major concern is a growing public complacency about AIDS in the West, where as many as half the people living with HIV may not know they're infected and so are more likely to spread the disease.

Anyone, anywhere, of any age, race, sex or sexual orientation can be infected, but you're at greatest risk if you:

• Have unprotected sex with multiple partners. You're at risk whether you're heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. Unprotected sex means having sex without using a new latex or polyurethane condom every time.
• Have unprotected sex with someone who is HIV-positive.
• Have another sexually transmitted disease, such as syphilis, herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea or bacterial vaginosis.
• Share needles during intravenous drug use.
• Are a person with hemophilia who received blood products between 1977 and April 1985 — the date standard testing for HIV began. (Applies to U.S.)
• Received a blood transfusion or blood products before 1985. (Applies to U.S.)

Newborns or nursing infants whose mothers tested positive for HIV but didn't receive treatment also are at high risk.