Tuesday, December 1, 1998 Published at 10:57 GMT
Pictures from a global crisis
Cuban health ministry workers raise Aids awareness
Events around the world have been held to mark World Aids Awareness Day which this year focuses on young people.
Some 7,000 young people become infected with HIV - the virus that causes Aids - every day.
The majority are aged between 15 and 24 and many more become orphans because of Aids.
More than 33 million people around the world are HIV positive and the number has risen by 10% in the last year, according to the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS, the United Nations Aids agency.
95% of people living with HIV and Aids are in the developing world, where it typically infects young healthy adults.
This makes it an economic as well as a health problem.
News Online presents pictures from around the world of activities to highlight World Aids Awareness Day.
Street children and adults marched through the streets of New Delhi, India, on Sunday to highlight the Aids problem. The candles represent the souls of people who have died of the disease.
In Beijing, China, people look at a display of Aids posters. Health officials predict that over a million Chinese people may be infected with HIV by the year 2000 unless urgent action is taken to encourage people to take precautions against the disease.
Trupti Gilada, an anti-Aids campaigner, stands next to an effigy of a giant Aids demon on a Bombay beach in India. The demon will be set alight next week. The Indian Health Organisation, a non-governmental body, says Bombay has 250,000 Aids cases and up to 30 people die daily from the disease.
Seven-year-old Beverley Alindi is treated for pneumonia at Nyumbani Hospice in a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya. She is one of 53 children at a special orphanage for HIV positive children. Both her parents have died of Aids.