Of the 42 million people now affected by AIDS and the HIV virus which causes it, the overwhelming majority are in the world's less or least developed regions. The same applies to the rate of growth of the disease.
Southern Africa was widely quoted as a dreadful example of what could happen other regions in ceremonies to mark World AIDS Day yesterday. Fears were expressed that the disease could escalate exponentially in densely-populated China and India, if the lessons on how to prevent that happening are not rapidly communicated and absorbed.
This global distribution of the disease vividly illustrates the inequalities of treatment, preventative facilities and information which affect its impact and spread. It has been to a large extent contained in the most developed societies - by measures including the use of anti-retroviral drugs which can slow its effects. But their estimated cost of €357 per annum per patient puts them out of reach of most AIDS victims in sub-Saharan Africa.
The catastrophic impact of the disease there has brought life expectancy down to below 40 years in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland - half that in the richest parts of the world. A huge problem of orphanage has emerged, as whole societies are thrown back to rely on the most meagre resources.
Nonetheless some progress has been made with determined medical and educational programmes backed up by dedicated staffing and well-targeted resources - in parts of South Africa, in Zambia, Senegal and Ethiopia. It is crucial that these examples of how to reverse the growth of the disease should be supported and publicised, and the lessons applied to other parts of the world.
That is one of the positive features of World AIDS Day. Building on comprehensive United Nations documentation of how the disease is spreading and being contained, it brings these lessons to much wider international attention. Alongside such evidence that progress is possible there sits the stark fact of indifference to the scale of the disaster shown up in the lack of funding to tackle it. Of the estimated €10 billion needed each year, according to the UN less than one third of that figure is being raised.
This is a scandal and a disgrace, given that we know the rate at which AIDS spreads is determined largely by the lack of money to invest in prevention, education, care and treatment. Ireland's fully-subscribed AIDS programme is a welcome exception.