HIV/Aids infection rates are growing among intravenous drug users, prostitutes and gay men around the globe but they are often viewed as outcasts and refused treatment, according to a new report.
The report, from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, also called on governments and humanitarian agencies to pay more attention to AIDS in their response to natural disasters and armed conflicts.
At the launch of the World Disasters Report in Dublin, chairman of the Irish Red Cross David Andrews said the global scale of HIV/Aids meant that it was an issue that must be tackled head-on.
Mr Andrews described the scale of the infection as the disaster “that keeps on killing”.
“We must grasp the enormity of a disaster that has already killed 25 million - more than a hundred times the number of people killed by the tsunami, our biggest single natural disaster in living memory,” he said.
The report stated that those groups, living on the fringes of society in many countries and especially in the developing world, "often face stigma, criminalization and little, if any, access to prevention and treatment services."
Mr Andrews said what is revealed in the report should not be read as the problem of any single continent or country. The report notes that in the most affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where prevalence rates reach 20 per cent, development gains are reversed and life expectancy halved.
Mr Andrews said work in Africa funded by the Irish Red Cross was aimed at curbing the spread of the HIV/AIDS and outlined key areas of activity including research into the current HIV/Aids situation on the ground and the introduction of clean and safe water and sanitations facilities serving communities with HIV/Aids sufferers living in them.
The report showed that around 7,000 people contracted HIV, the virus that leads to Aids, every day last year
The report also showed that people living with HIV are among the groups most vulnerable in disaster and crisis situations. Disasters, both man-made and natural, disrupt basic services, which in turn can exacerbate other drivers of the epidemic and increase people's vulnerability to HIV infection.
The report's editor Lindsay Knight said the HIV/Aids epidemic is a disaster whose scale and extent could have been prevented. "Ignorance, stigma, political inaction, indifference and denial all contributed to millions of deaths," she said.
The World Disasters Report also shows that disasters in 2007 were slightly less numerous and far less deadly than in previous years but the total number of people affected by natural disasters, including floods, storms, droughts and geophysical disasters, rose sharply compared to 2006.
In all, 405 natural disasters were reported worldwide in 2007, as opposed to 423 in 2006. Although the number of people reported killed (16,679) was the lowest for a decade, the number of people reported affected by such disasters in 2007 rose to 201 million, a 40 per cent increase compared to the previous year.
Additional reporting Reuters