Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Saturday, September 18, 1999
Angus Shaw, Associated Press Writer
Conference officials and many Zambian leaders speculated that Mwiinga, 49, had died of an AIDS-related illness. But none would so say publicly, and President Frederick Chiluba refused to elaborate on Mwiinga's death, despite challenges from the local media.
The case reflected a major theme at the four-day AIDS conference: Africa is in denial over its leading killer.
About 11 million Africans have died from AIDS over the past 15 years. The continent accounts for more than four-fifths of the world's AIDS-related deaths. One out of four people in some African countries are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Despite the seriousness of the disease, Chiluba, the host president, did not attend the U.N.-sponsored conference. Heads of state from 15 other African nations declined invitations.
A main theme of the meeting of more than 6,300 officials, AIDS activists and scientists that ended Thursday was the need for greater political commitment to contain the epidemic and to diminish the overwhelming stigma that leads many to hide their suffering.
Carol Bellamy, head of the U.N. children's agency, was among officials who urged Africans to break "the conspiracy of silence" that hides the severity of the crisis from ordinary people.
African leaders also have not done enough to address the epidemic, despite the catastrophe it poses to the continent's overall development and growth, the conference concluded.
The burden of AIDS has brought health services to the brink of collapse and reduced food production in some countries.
The U.N. Development Program estimates that industrial production in the worst affected African cities has fallen by 20 percent as workers weaken, die and replacements have to be trained. Along with corruption and ruinous economic policies, the AIDS epidemic is scaring off potential investors, UNDP said.
In a vicious cycle, the declining economies leave prostitution as one of the last viable forms of work, further spreading the disease, said Marvellous Mhloyi, a population specialist from Zimbabwe.
Studies in Zambia have shown prostitutes can earn as much as $40 a day. A Zambian police officer takes home about $30 per month.
Contributing to the state of denial on AIDS is the taboo on talking about sex openly. Jack Caldwell, a conference official from the Australian National University, says condom distributors in Nigeria report that men preferred the privacy of buying condoms to collecting them free from public clinics.
If they couldn't afford them, they took their chances with unprotected sex.
Condoms also connote "a lack of intimacy" for African men. And men regard women who insist on condoms as promiscuous, Mhloyi said. However, promiscuous men themselves face few stigmas.
In southern Africa, where safe sex practices are mostly spurned, an estimated half of infected women caught the virus from their husbands. "Abstinence is only prescribed for women, but it is accepted men may relieve themselves with other women," she said.
Truckers are also blamed for spreading the virus. Along the main highway from neighboring Zimbabwe, AIDS has been nicknamed "Scania," after the Swedish-built freight trucks that ply the road.
Francis Mhlanga, a long-distance trucker, does not understand why health officials are so frantic.
"If God had put AIDS in food, would we stop eating?" he said.
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