As of the end of 2003, an estimated 37.8 million people worldwide - 35.7 million adults and 2.1 million children younger than 15 years - were living with HIV/AIDS. Approximately two-thirds of these people (25.0 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa; another 20 percent (7.4 million) live in Asia and the Pacific.

An estimated 4.8 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide during 2003; that is, about 14,000 infections each day. More than 95 percent of these new infections occurred in developing countries.

More than 20 million people with HIV/AIDS have died since the first AIDS cases were identified in 1981.