The symptoms and diagnoses.

1. Chronic Diarrhea for more than a month.
2. Weight loss of 10% of body weight.
3. Intermittent or constant fever for more than a month.

Included with the above they should also show one or more of the following minor signs.

1. History of herpes zoster.
2. Persistent cough for more than a month.
3. Generalized itchy skin rashes.
4. Thrush.
5. Chronic progressive or disseminated herpes virus infection.
6. Swollen lymph glands.

The above became known as the Bangui definition and was accepted as sufficient despite the fact that numerous other conditions can fit this profile. Laboratory facilities remain scarce in rural areas in Africa and AIDS is diagnosed on this basis in many rural areas.

The reality: Taking the statistics into account it is a known fact, that collecting precise medical data in sub-Saharan Africa, with it's abject poverty is almost impossible. The UNAIDS and other organizations compute the number of HIV cases from counting HIV positive pregnant women who visit health clinics. The number is extrapolated in complex mathematical models to estimate the death toll.