The year is not yet over but even with a full month to go, it is possible to say that some three million people will die from Aids in 2006, two million of them in Africa. Over the last 11 months, some 500,000 children have become infected with HIV, the virus that in most cases will, unless treated, lead to Aids and death.
The number of children now orphaned as a result of their parents dying from Aids stands at 15 million. As the UK-based Aids awareness charity Avert notes on its website (www.avert.org), Aids is tearing apart families and societies. "This is unacceptable." Indeed it is. But the scale of the problem, the epic enormity of it, has made the extent of the threat to humankind difficult to grasp.
For some observers of the phenomenon, that aspect was underlined when it was disclosed some years ago that scientists noticed they were able to monitor the progress of the disease in central Africa by studying satellite photographs of the earth's surface. In parts of south western Uganda, for instance, they saw that dense forest was encroaching on land previously cleared for farming. The families who had been farming the land had been wiped out by Aids and nature was reasserting itself.
From a slow start in the early 1980s, by the end of the decade Aids had permeated the public consciousness, at least in the first world. In many parts of the developing world, however, public ignorance, sustained by official indifference and worse, lasted longer and persists to this day. As a result, in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Aids threatens the viability of whole states. In Zimbabwe, for instance, 25 per cent of people are HIV positive and life expectancy has fallen below 40 years.
But it would be wrong to see Aids as mainly an African problem. The disease is a huge, though largely unacknowledged, problem in parts of India, south-east Asia, Russia, parts of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. The reasons are varied but include irresponsible personal behaviour, ignorance, faith in "remedies" lacking scientific or medical foundation, and a lack of support - for religious reasons - for the use of condoms.
A sustained, properly funded, global campaign against Aids, rooted in education and practical advice, must continue. Medical research has made great strides in recent years. Greater long-term advances can be made by lifting third world countries out of poverty: HIV/Aids spreads more rapidly among the poor.
The world is into its third decade of the HIV/Aids epidemic. Much has been achieved but a vast threat remains. Almost 40 million people are living with HIV, and their numbers are growing.