At the height of the epidemic in 2004, around 2.1 million people a year died of AIDS-related illnesses. According to UNAIDS, the figure was about 630,000 in 2024. The key has been antiretroviral treatment, which now gives people with HIV who are treated early a near-normal life expectancy, and stops them passing the virus on once it is undetectable.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.