However, HIV/AIDS makes

With more than 113 million children not in school in the poorest countries already presents a major challenge. However, HIV/AIDS makes this much greater in those countries where the education system is already struggling to grow, teachers are dying, or are too sick to teach. And every year more children are losing their parents and the support that allows them to go to school. Achieving education for all in a world of AIDS presents an unprecedented challenge to the world education community."World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn¹³⁹

A report warned that Papua New Guinea was on the brink of an HIV/AIDS epidemic and the country could face losing 13-38% of its working population by 2020. It was estimated that Papua New Guinea had between 10,000 to 15,000 people infected with HIV. In comparison, Australia with a population almost 5 times that of Papua New Guinea had less than 12,000 HIV positive people. It was feared that HIV/AIDS could spread rapidly since 90% of infections were transmitted through heterosexual sex.¹⁴⁰

A major Spanish study found that over 19,000 instances of unprotected oral sex did not lead to a single case of HIV transmission among 135 HIV-negative heterosexuals in a sexual relationship with a person with HIV.¹⁴¹

The WHO warned that HIV could spread rapidly throughout Afghanistan due to high levels of injecting drug use and unsafe blood transfusions. It also said that refugees were especially vulnerable to HIV infection because of sexual abuse, violence and lack of information and education. To learn more about this problem, the WHO was funding the first survey of HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan.¹⁴²

Treatment activist protesting during the 2002 AIDS conference

In July, the 14th World AIDS Conference was held in Barcelona, Spain. Issues around providing HIV treatment for resource-poor countries dominated the mood and agendas of the conference.

"If we can get cold Coca Cola and beer to every remote corner of Africa, it should not be impossible to do the same with drugs."Joep Lange, the President of the International AIDS Society speaking at the closing ceremony¹⁴³

At the Barcelona conference, there were encouraging results from trials of T-20, an injectable drug from a new class of treatments called fusion inhibitors. The results provided good news for people who had become resistant to existing drugs; the fusion inhibitors were called 'the most exciting advance since protease inhibitors were introduced'.¹⁴⁴

The number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS had risen three-fold in six years to reach an all time high of 13.4 million. It was estimated that India had the largest number of AIDS orphans of any country in the world, with an estimated at 1.2 million in 2001; this was predicted to rise to 2 million in five years and 2.7 million in ten years.