In 2006 the number of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide exceeded 39.5 million. Sub Saharan Africa accounts for 63% of those infected - 24.7 million.*

Over the last 20 years the average life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa has dropped from 62 years to 47 years.^ There were 2.8 million new infections in Sub Saharan Africa in 2006. That means that an estimated 7,671 people were infected every day, 319 infections an hour, or five new HIV cases every minute.

One of the countries hit hardest by HIV/AIDS is Tanzania where an estimated 1.4 million adults and children are infected. However, these figures are beginning to show hopeful signs of decreasing. UNAIDS reports that the national average of people living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania has dropped 1.6 percent in the last ten years, from 8.1% in 1995 to 6.5% in 2004.* However, they also report a new and disturbing trend. According to recent projections “the number of new HIV infections in rural areas could be twice as high as in urban areas by 2010.*" This is contrary to public health official’s predictions, and represents a devastating trend because over three quarters of the country’s population is agrarian, and education and health services are much less available in rural areas.

When TEAM's ministry began in 2001 over 30% of the local blood donors in the Diocese of Mpwapwa tested positive for HIV – nearly one in every three individuals, half of them infected before the age of thirty. As the country's work force perishes, agriculture is threatened, households are left hungry, and children are left without parents. There are over 1 million orphans in Tanzania, and that number is growing.

TEAM's response to the AIDS epidemic is to help local churches educate and mobilize their people. Through workshops and counsel we work with them to strengthen the church's response to this overwhelming disease and to use its well-established infrastructure to provide training, community sensitization, and care and counsel for the affected.

Sources:

• * UNAIDS/WHO HIV/AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2006
• ^ Human Development Indicators
• + FOCUS: AIDS - A Threat To Rural Africa