HIV INFECTION DISPARITIES IN THE DEVELOPING AND DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Abstract

Around 33.3 million people in the whole world are living with Human immune deficiency virus (HIV). Although HIV is found in all over of the world, some parts are more badly affected than others. This study will help to determine the personal and environmental characteristics of the countries that considerably contribute to the increasing incidence of HIV infections. Among the nine characteristics recognized, only four of them have significantly influenced HIV occurrence namely: unemployment rate, literacy rate, geographical location and race and only three characterisctics differentiated between high and low HIV occurrence countries; population density, national average income per capita and total health expenditure. The study also revealed that eighty countries with significant increase in the speed of the spread of infections, while the rest has insignificant change of the number of infections.