Welcome to The Chapel’s 2007 World AIDS Day experience.  Every year on December 1, people from around the world spend the day learning about AIDS and encouraging the millions of people suffering from it. This website is part of our contribution: a tool to expand your own knowledge, a resource to pass on to others, and a reminder to spend time in prayer and in practical support of those who face AIDS daily.  In each section of this site you'll find some relevant information, a prayer point, and a variety of resources and links.  Thanks for joining us…

Many of us have heard of an epidemic: when a disease becomes widespread and effects a large amount of people.  However, not as many of us are familiar with a pandemic.  A pandemic is a disease that spreads throughout an entire country, continent, or the world.  One way to think of it is as an epidemic over a larger amount of space. (source - dictionary.com).  The AIDS pandemic has affected every single country on our planet, though in differing ways and to varying degrees.  Below you'll find pages from the most recent UNAIDS/WHO report detailing the current spread of HIV and AIDS.  On the resources page you'll find a variety of links that have various visual representations of the scope and spread of the pandemic.

 

 

                     

              currently infected with HIV                     newly infected with HIV                     died from AIDS in last year

 

 

Take a moment to pray for one of the regions of the world found on the maps above.  Spend time praying for healing, spiritually and physically, of the people facing HIV in that region.

The sites below offer a variety of visual representations of HIV around the world.  However, some sites statistics have not yet been adjusted to the latest research that came out in this year's UNAIDS reports.  Prior to last week, there was believed to be over 40 million people currently infected with AIDS.  Thanks to new data collection methods, this number has been scaled back to just over 33 million.  Bear this in mind when using these resources.

 

United Nations Population Fund - Clock and World Map

The UNFPA has created a page of various resources, including an AIDS clock and a map showing estimates of the number of people infected in each country.  It also has a scalable feature that allows the map to be sized proportionally to the number of AIDS infections.

 

In May of 2006, PBS' Frontline produced a special 4 hour documentary on AIDS.  As part of their program, they created a variety of web resources including an interactive map with country profiles.

 

A map of the US by Frontline providing state by state breakdowns.

 

Created by Saddleback Church, this map looks at the world by regions based on the 2005 statistics.

 

A variety of charts showing the affects on population, the spread by regions in Africa, the number of deaths, and much more.

 

A very detailed and interactive map providing country by country breakdowns  of the scope of the pandemic in the continent of Africa.  Provided by DATA (debt, AIDS, trade, africa), an advocacy organization dedicated to eradicating extreme poverty and AIDS in Africa.