Life Map
Projects at a glance
AUSTRIA
In the past years the number of new HIV infections in Austria is constantly high. In 2011 the number of new HIV infections was 525, a plus of 38 compared to 2012.
The number of HIV infected people living in Austria is estimated 9,000: about two third men and one third women. 70% of the new infections are diagnosed in Austrian citizens and 30% in migrants from other regions. About half of the affected people live in Vienna.
Since 1982 there have been 3,767 reported AIDS cases, 64 in 2011. Currently there are 5,528 HIV/AIDS patients in treatment.
In January 2010 HIV test as part of the mother-child booklet was introduced in Austria and therefore almost every pregnant woman in Austria gets tested. In 2010 and in 2011 there were no mother to child transmissions of HIV in Austria.
Projects of AIDS LIFE
Also in Austria AIDS is in many cases related to isolation and loneliness – still the diagnosis often means being socially marginalized. AIDS LIFE has supported HIV and AIDS-projects from the very beginning – preferred organizations providing direct aid as well as associations caring for social contacts of people affected.
- AIDS Helps Austria: Direct aid, controlling the status of affected people, meetings for HIV-positives, day care, nutrition advice, massage programs, therapeutic measures, transportation to hospitals, active programs & occupation projects, leisure activities, courses and workshops, holiday projects, family visits
- Association „Positive Dialog“: Occupation project: „Therapeutic assistance“
- HIVmobil: HIV-specific home care and social care for people with HIV/AIDS
- University clinic Innsbruck: Beeping watches, tablet boxes, meal coupons
Sources: UNAIDS Narrative Report 2012; UNAIDS Global AIDS Report November 2010; 22nd Report of the Austrian HIV Cohort Study
ASIA & THE PACIFIC REGION
Today, approximately 5 million people are living with HIV and AIDS in Asia and the Pacific region – therefore, 15% of the total worldwide HIV/AIDS burden is carried by Asia and the Pacific.
UNAIDS reports that in 2009, more than 360,000 Asians/Pacific Islanders were newly infected with HIV, bringing the total number living with HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific to approximately 5 million. In the same year, approximately 300,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses in this region – this is the highest number of AIDS-deaths outside sub-Sahara Africa. The overall trend of the region shows various forms of the epidemic, within and between the countries. The majority of national HIV epidemics seems to be stable and no country of the region has a generalized epidemic. In many areas, intravenous drug abuse catalyzes new infections. HIV is spread in the entire region by migrant workers, men who have sex with men, as well as sex workers and their sexual partners.
Enhanced access to mother to child prevention services has significantly reduced new infections of children. In Asia, around 22 000 children between 0 and 14 years have been infected with HIV – this is 15% less than in 1999 (when there were estimated 26 000 new infections).
Projects of AIDS LIFE
- AIDS LIFE’s support of the region started in 2004 with a supported project in Cambodia by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
- In 2005, amfAR received the Crystal of Hope for TREAT Asia and a long collaboration in the region started then.
- With the annual donation of approximately half a million Euro, AIDS LIFE is the single biggest funder of amfAR’s TREAT Asia Pediatric HIV/AIDS Initiative – TREAT Asia’s pediatric network was created in 2005 to form a regional association of pediatric HIV clinicians, researchers, and orphan advocates and to establish a pediatric HIV observational database for epidemiologic research. Consisting of 22 clinics or programs that operate on the front lines of pediatric AIDS treatment and research in Asia, the TREAT Asia pediatric network involves sites in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
- Furthermore, AIDS LIFE supports „New Hope for Cambodian Children“ since 2009. This Cambodian AIDS orphanage is run by an American couple, and is only open for HIV positive children.
Sources: amfAR (www.amfar.org), UNAIDS (www.unaids.org; „Together we will end AIDS“)
EAST & SOUTHERN AFRICA
East and Southern Africa remains the area most heavily affected by the HIV epidemic. Out of the total number of people living with HIV worldwide in 2009, 34% resided in 10 countries of Southern Africa. The burden of HIV on women is considerably great in sub-Saharan Africa, where 6 in 10 adults living with HIV in 2011 were women.
The vast majority of people newly infected with HIV are infected during unprotected heterosexual intercourse with multiple partners. New HIV infections among children due to mother-to-child transmission are also significant.
Nearly 6,2 million people were receiving antiretroviral therapy in 2011, up from just 100 000 in 2003. Furthermore, treatment coverage increased by 19% between 2010 and 2011. Antiretroviral therapy has added 14 million life-years in low and middle income countries globally since 1995, with more than 9 million of these in sub-Saharan Africa.
Treatment is expanding especially rapidly where the need is the greatest. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than half the people needing treatment were getting it in 2011, and 22% more people were getting treatment in 2011 than a year earlier: 6.2 million vs. 5.1 million.
In sub-Saharan Africa, increased access to HIV treatment has reduced the number of people dying from AIDS-related causes from an annual peak of 1.8 million in 2005 to 1.2 million in 2011. Almost half these deaths occurred in southern Africa.
Projects of AIDS LIFE
- AIDS LIFE started to provide money for international HIV and AIDS relief programs in 2001, when cooperating with the first international partner – the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Through the years of a fruitful partnership, AIDS LIFE supported many different projects in sub-Saharan Africa, covering a wide range of activities in regions with the greatest needs.
- In 2007, the Crystal of Hope Award was awarded to the Ugandan „Youth to Youth“ project – in the same year as President Clinton’s African Programs were supported by AIDS LIFE for the first time. In the following year, the Crystal of Hope went to sub-Saharan Africa again, this time to „Yier Nigma“ in Kenya.
- From 2009 onwards, the Clinton Health Access Initiative realized many different projects in various East and Southern African countries in the fight against HIV and AIDS, culminating in a special campaign in 2012, aiming at dramatically reducing mother to child transmission in Uganda and Zambia.
- Further organizations such as Impilo, Education Africa, German AIDS Foundation, Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung and the MTV-Staying Alive Foundation have used AIDS LIFE’s donation for projects in sub-Saharan nations. Since 2001, AIDS LIFE has supported projects in Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique and Malawi.
Sources: UNAIDS (www.unaids.org; „Together we will end AIDS“ Report 2012)
EASTERN EUROPE & CENTRAL ASIA
Eastern Europe and Central Asia is the only region where HIV prevalence clearly remains on the rise. The number of people living with HIV has almost tripled since 2000 and reached an estimated total of 1.4 million in 2009. A rapid rise in HIV infections among people who inject drugs at the turn of the century caused the epidemic in this region to surge.
Treatment coverage is low in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (23%) and the epidemics are mostly concentrated among key populations at higher risk of HIV infection, such as people who inject drugs, sex workers and their sexual partners and, to a much lesser extent, men who have sex with men. Achieving equitable access to treatment for key populations at higher risk remains an unmet challenge of the global HIV response. These groups often face special difficulties in accessing treatment and care services. In Russia and Ukraine, injecting drug users who are also living with HIV, are less than half as likely to be receiving HIV treatment as people living with HIV who do not inject drugs.
In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, AIDS-related deaths continue to rise. In 2011, an estimated 90 000 people died of AIDS-related causes, six times more than the estimated 15 000.
Projects of AIDS LIFE
- In 2003, AIDS LIFE began supporting Elton John AIDS Foundation’s project in Russia. Furthermore, the “Crystal of Hope” award, that is presented to an AIDS groundworker at the Life Ball, went towards the region twice in a row. In 2010, EJAF’s „The Way Home“ project for street children in Ukraine was awarded and in the following year, the Crystal of Hope award was given to the Russian Andrey Rylkov Foundation to support projects for drug users in Moscow.
- In 2011, AIDS LIFE started supporting an UNAIDS project in Russia, aiming for more awareness for HIV and AIDS in the country.
- In Ukraine, UNODC and AIDS LIFE started the „women4women“ project to create gender-sensitive care for vulnerable women.
- In a few other countries in the region (Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgystan, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine), AIDS LIFE supported amfAR’s „MSM Initiative“ – an initiative for men who have sex with men to expanded access to HIV services and promote human rights.
- AIDS LIFE also supports a project by the Clinton Health Access Iniative (CHAI) in Ukraine, which provides external quality control programs for HIV rapid testing.
Sources: UNAIDS (www.unaids.org; „Together we will end AIDS“)
THE CARRIBEAN
Although the Caribbean accounts for a relatively small share of the global epidemic, its HIV prevalence among adults is about 1.0% which is higher than in all other regions outside sub-Saharan Africa.
Unprotected sex between men and women—especially paid sex—is believed to be the main mode of HIV transmission in this region; however, emerging evidence indicates that substantial transmission is also occurring among men who have sex with men.
Coverage of antiretroviral treatment was highest in Latin America and the Caribbean, which boast some of the longest-running antiretroviral treatment programmes in the world. In the Caribbean, an estimated 10 000 people died from AIDS-related causes in 2011, about half as many as in 2001.
Projects of AIDS LIFE
- Together with the Clinton Health Access Initiative, AIDS LIFE has supported HIV and AIDS programs in Haiti between 2010 and 2012. Among other sources, the funds provided by the MAC AIDS Fund have been used to provide people living with HIV and AIDS in Haiti adequate health care services.
Sources: UNAIDS (www.unaids.org; „Together we will end AIDS“ Report 2012)