Definitions.

Data Notes

HISTORICAL DATA IN THIS BOOK MAY DIFFER FROM THOSE in other World Bank publications if more reliable data have become available, if a different base year has been used for constant price data, or if countries have been classified differently.

The former Zaire is referred to as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo DR), and Hong Kong (China, as of July 1, 1997), is sometimes referred to as Hong Kong.

* All dollar ($) amounts are current U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified.

* Billion is a thousand million

Abbreviations and Acronyms

AIDS      Acquired immune deficiency syndrome
AIDSCAP   AIDS Control and Prevention Project
CSM       Condom social marketing (see Glossary, below: Social
          marketing of condoms)
DALY      Disability-adjusted life year
DHS       Demographic and Health Survey
DOTS      Directly observed treatment short course (for tuberculosis)
EC        European Commission
FSU       Former Soviet Union
GAPC      Global AIDS Policy Coalition
GDP       Gross domestic product (see Glossary, below)
GNP       Gross national product (see Glossary, below)
GPA       Global Programme on AIDS
HIV       Human immunodeficiency virus
IDU       Injecting drug user
IEC       Information, education, and communication
MSM       Men who have sex with men (see Glossary, below)
NEP       Needle exchange program
NGO       Nongovernmental organization (see Glossary, below)
OECD      Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
ODA       Overseas Development Administration (U.K.)
Ol        Opportunistic infection
PAHO      Pan American Health Organization
PCP       Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia
PSI       Population Services International (private firm)
SOMARC    Social Marketing for Change (private firm)
STD       Sexually transmitted disease
TB        Tuberculosis
UNAIDS    Joinr United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
UNDP      United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO    United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
          Organization
UNFPA     United Nations Population Fund
UNICEF    United Nations Children's Fund
USAID     U. S. Agency for International Development
WHO       World Health Organization
WHO/GPA   World Health Organization/Global Programme on AIDS

Glossary

Adverse selection: the selection into an insurance pool of people likely to have higher claims than others.

Assortative sexual mixing: the extent to which people with similar numbers of sexual partners pair with each other.

Asymptomatic: infected by a disease agent but exhibiting no medical symptoms; subclinical.

Commercial sex: the selling of sexual services for compensation; prostitution.

Concurrent partnership: partnerships that overlap in time.

Disassortative sexual mixing: the extent to which people with many sexual partners pair with people with few partners.

Discordant couple: a couple in which one partner is infected with HIV and the other is not.

Endemic: usually prevalent; persistent at relatively constant levels.

Epidemic: a sudden unusual increase in cases that exceeds the number expected on the basis of experience.

Epidemic, concentrated: an HIV epidemic in a country in which 5 percent or more of individuals in groups with high-risk behavior, but less than 5 percent of women attending urban antenatal clinics, are infected.

Epidemic, generalized: an HIV epidemic in a country in which 5 percent or more of women attending urban antenatal clinics are infected; infection rates among individuals in groups with high-risk behavior are also likely to exceed 5 percent in countries with a generalized HIV epidemic.

Epidemic, nascent: an HIV epidemic in a country in which less than 5 percent of individuals in groups with high-risk behavior are infected.

Epidemiology: the study of the distribution and determinants of disease and injury in human populations.

Externality: an unpriced side effect on a third party of a transaction between two parties.

Gross domestic product: a crude measure of national economic well-being: aggregate expenditure by the residents of a country or final goods and services for consumption, investment, and government services.

Gross national product: an alternative to gross domestic product for measuring national economic well-being. Adds to the gross domestic product income obtained by nationals from labor or property outside the country and deducts the income of foreign nationals residing in the country.

High-risk behavior: unprotected sexual intercourse (i.e., without a condom) with many partners, or sharing of unsterilized injecting equipment.

HIV-positive: having antibodies to HIV

Incidence of HIV: the number of new cases of HIV in a given time period, often expressed as a percentage for a given number of the susceptible population.

Low-risk individuals: individuals practicing behavior that puts themselves and their partners at low risk of HIV infection; depending on the extent to which they mix with high-risk individuals, however, they may nevertheless be at high risk of becoming infected.

Men who have sex with men: homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual men who have sex with other men.

Merit good: a good (or service) whose consumption by the poor is valued by society as a whole.

Moral hazard: the increase in the average loss incurred by people who are insured compared with those who are not; term used by health insurance companies to refer to the increased demand for health care exhibited by the insured.

Nongovernmental organization: for-profit firms and private nonprofit organizations.

Opportunistic illness: an illness that affects people with weak immune systems.

Pandemic: an epidemic occurring simultaneously in many countries.

Prevalence of HLV: the number of people with HIV at a point in time, often expressed as a percentage of the total population.

Public good: a good or service having the following two attributes: (1) consumption by one person does not diminish the amount available to others, and (2) excluding people from consuming the good is impossible or costly.

Reproductive rate: the average number of susceptible people infected by an infected person over his or her lifetime.

Seroprevalence: the prevalence of an infection as detected in blood serum.

Sex worker: someone who offers sexual services for money.

Social marketing of condoms: programs designed to raise condom use by improving the social acceptability of condoms, making them more widely available through nontraditional outlets and offering them for sale at subsidized prices.

Susceptible: vulnerable to becoming infected.

Symptomatic: exhibiting sufficient symptoms to require medical treatment.