Efforts to eradicate poverty, empower women, reduce child mortality and improve maternal health in the region continue to be severely undercut by the devastating AIDS pandemic and by massive human displacements in the wake of natural disasters, violent conflicts and debilitating political strife. In a region that is home to more than 60 per cent of the world's HIV-positive people, halting and reversing the spread of HIV, as well as addressing related issues of malaria and tuberculosis, must be among the highest priorities.
Addressing the reproductive health needs of the millions of women and adolescents currently at risk for contracting the infection is critical to this effort. Two-thirds of those newly infected with HIV in the region are women. About 7 per cent of young women and 2.2 per cent of men aged 15-24 years in sub-Saharan Africa were living with HIV at the end of 2004 An estimated 1.9 million people were newly infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa in 2007, bringing to 22 million the number of people living with HIV. Two thirds (67%) of the global total of 32.9 million people with HIV live in this region, and three quarters (75%) of all AIDS deaths in 2007 occurred there.
Family Planning
