Aids
In Sub-Saharan Africa
Lydia
M. Mensah-Dartey
This
page is designed to provide information on the state of Aids in Sub-Saharan
Africa. It is aimed at serving as a World Wide Web resource associated
with Aids in Sub-Saharan Africa to those who have little or no knowledge on the
subject. This page has links to
other sites that viewers can go to for further information.
Contents:
Overview:
AIDS has become a
global epidemic since its discovery in 1981. It affects all ages, races,
genders, classes, and nationalities. AIDS poses a tremendous problem to
underdeveloped countries because they lack the education and the funds to halt
the increasing spread of AIDS. AIDS has gained such a widespread effect on the
world that there is now a call for an international regime to rise up and serve
as a helping hand to underdeveloped countries, as well as the rest of the
world.
More than 50
million people have now been infected with the HIV virus, according to the
latest UN and World Health Organization figures. Deaths from Aids reached a record 2.6m in the past year
- 2.2m died in 1998 - and an estimated 5.6m adults and children were
infected. 90% of all people living in the world
with HIV dwell in developing countries.
Sub-Saharan Africa
- which includes countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia - still
accounts for the majority of all new infections. 70% of the world's victims of HIV and
Aids are in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has less than 10 percent of the world's
population. This figure is not easy to take in. Eastern and Southern
Africa have been particularly hard hit.
Aids is now seen as a development problem more than a health
issue.
There are now more women carrying the virus
than men. African girls aged 15 to 19 are five to six times more likely to be
HIV-positive than boys the same age.
Life expectancy in southern Africa is expected to fall from 59 in the early 1990s to 45 between 2005 and 2010. This would be roughly the same level as in the early 1950s. Factors contributing to the spread of Aids in Africa are poverty, ignorance, the prohibitive cost of Aids drugs, an aversion to discovery sex and promiscuity. One major factor is prostitution. Poverty makes young girls drop out of school and run to the city to work as child minders, where most of them earn very little money. Because this money is not enough to provide for her family at home, the girl is driven to prostitution at an early age where she thinks she can earn more money daily.
Treatment of
Aids is a big challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa because of scarce money, few drugs
and little hope.
Click here for more
information on an overview of Aids in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can also Watch the CNN International
documentary "The New Face of AIDS".
The following site, Aids and Africa,
presents a few basic notions concerning HIV/AIDS and focuses on the biological,
epidemiological and socioeconomic characteristics of the African epidemic.
This site also talks about what Aids is, transmission of Aids, where this
disease comes from, impact of Aids, prevention programs and treatment methods
being used at the moment to prevent this disease. You also get the chance
to watch a 23 slide
show on STD-AIDS in Africa.
Impact:
The
Aids epidemic killed 2.2 mil people in Africa in 1998
Peter
Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, emphasized that Aids is the single greatest
threat to development in many countries.
He stated that, "With an epidemic of this scale, every new infection adds
to the ripple effect, impacting families, communities, households and,
increasingly, businesses and economies." (Source:
United
Nations Aids program)
As the HIV epidemic
deepens in Africa, it is leaving an economically devastated continent in its
awake. It is important to note that
the impact of aids goes far beyond the immediate family of those who fall ill
and die. The whole nation and community are affected. The effects could even be
international. Family structure is dissolved. Children become
orphans, elderly relatives are left without support, and households and
communities are impoverished. In
particular, when Aids claims the lives of people in their most productive years,
grieving orphans and elderly most contend with the sudden loss of financial
support and communities must bear the burden of caring for those left
behind. The national and global
economy loses leaders, managers, producers, and even consumers. Countries must draw on a diminishing
pool of trained and talented workers.
Aids
leaves Africa’s economic future in doubt.
Click here
Intervention:
A UNAIDS "Epidemic Update"
revealed that, despite concerted prevention efforts in developing countries, the
increase in infections continues.
There are numerous activities and organizations
helping to combat the Aids epidemic in Africa.
Enter here to read on efforts
by the US government and the UN to combat the aids problem in
Africa.
The World Bank maintains a web site that contains information
on the Aids-HIV prevention best practice and epidemiological
facts by country.
You can get Aids contact
persons in Africa, Key World Bank documents for each country in Sub-Saharan
Africa, statistics and links to additional information.
(Picture:
A 26-year-old woman, her arm covered with a
skin
infection, suffers from AIDS at the government
hospital
in Gulu, Uganda.)
Remarks:
“Time for a
blunt message to Africa!” says a CNN report (author: George
Ayittey). “Refugees make easy
targets for sexual predators, many of whom carry HIV, the AIDS virus … Africa
cannot continue in the new millennium preoccupied with violence, war and
political instability. Sustainable
development cannot occur in such an environment. Nor can control of the AIDS
epidemic.”
It
is worth noting that HIV/AIDS is a global development issue as a number of
researchers have rightly noted.
Some questions that remains to be investigated further include, “Does the
epidemic cause developmental delays or does it result from them?” For some work on this, see an article on
“AIDS
and Development - What is the Link?”
by Dr. Josef Decosas.
For
any comment please write to: Lydia
Last
revised: 4/17/00