HIV/AIDS? How many people are affected .

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that there are now 40 million people living with HIV or AIDS worldwide. Most of them do not know they carry HIV and may be spreading the virus to others. In the U.S., approximately one million people have HIV or AIDS, and 40,000 Americans become newly infected with HIV each year. According to the CDC, it is estimated that a quarter of all people with HIV in the U.S. do not know they are carrying the virus.Since the beginning of the epidemic, AIDS has killed more than 25 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 Americans. AIDS has replaced malaria and tuberculosis as the world's deadliest infectious disease among adults and is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. Fifteen million children have been orphaned by the epidemic.