Goal 6: combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 6: combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 6 is to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases. The fight against these widely spread and highly lethal diseases is seen as a crucial element in meeting the other Goals.
In our world today:
- 39.5 million people were living with HIV in 2006. That year alone, 4.3 million people were infected.
- Approximately 15 million children around the world have lost one or both parents to AIDS.
- Malaria causes more than 300 million acute illnesses and at least one million deaths annually.
- An estimated 1.6 million deaths resulted from tuberculosis in 2005.
Progress on Goal 6:
- Interventions to control malaria such as the provision of mosquito nets have been expanded. In sub-Saharan Africa, the disctribution of nets incrased ten-fold from 1999 to 2003.
- Several countries have been successful at reducing HIV rates, but the number of people living with HIV worldwide continues to rise.
- Tuberculosis seems to level off globally, but progress will need to be faster to half the prevalence of the disease and the mortaility rate by 2015.
