Today is

and at this time about men, women and children in the world are living with HIV/AIDS

In November 2007, the number of HIV infections around the world was reduced from about 39 million to 33.2 million which was a drop of about 16 per cent. Of course, the number of people actually infected did not drop. The apparent fall resulted from the way in which the number of cases was estimated. As the science of disease prevalence estimation has improved, we have better ways of predicting the dynamics of disease spread. In addition, better data are available based on more surveys that have improved the models on which  prevalence is estimated.  Real new infections also fell from 4.3 to 2.5 million in 2006 and this appears to have resulted from the curtailment of risky sexual behavior, especially in east African countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe.