More than 50 million infected with HIV

More than 16 million have died from Aids-related illnesses, with 2.6 million (a record) in the past year. "Life expectancy in southern Africa is expected to fall from 59 in the early 1990s to 45 between 2005 and 2010." "The number of infected people [in Russia] rose by more than a third in 1999 to reach an estimated 360,000." 25 million people died of the Black Death in the 14th century, admittedly out of a far smaller total.