The Chicago Tribune - July 3, 2000

The report by the UN joint program on HIV/AIDS should be a call to arms for health workers, individual countries and the international community to redouble their efforts to battle a disease that many Americans wrongly think has been brought under control.

It hasn't.

And the fact that the worst news is in Africa should be a wakeup call for Americans as well, who are not immune to the fallout and should not be disinterested in Africa's agony. The world will be dealing with this catastrophe in myriad ways, from health-care assistance to foreign aid to grappling with Africa's international debt.

While the HIV rate has stabilized in the U.S. and other developing countries at a fraction of 1 percent of the population, it is higher than 10 percent in 16 African countries. In Botswana, a shocking 35.8 percent of adults are now infected with HIV. In South Africa, 19.9 percent of adults are infected -- some 4.2 million people, the most in any nation in the world.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that in 20 years in Botswana there will be more people in their 60s and 70s than in their 40s and 50s. AIDS will all but wipe out one generation. And what of the generations after that?

There are success stories in Africa, according to the UN report, which was released in advance of the 13th International AIDS Conference, set to begin next weekend in Durban, South Africa.

Uganda was the first African nation to recognize the danger of HIV to national development. It brought its infection rate down through a strong prevention campaign in the 1990s. That illustrates the importance of a credible program of education and prevention, and an effort to destigmatize AIDS.

The UN's estimates are that 18.8 million people have died of AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic, and that almost twice that number -- 34.3 million more -- are living with HIV/AIDS. Another 5.4 million were infected last year and there are 13.2 million AIDS orphans.

The disease is cutting life expectancies and impeding development, economic progress, education, trade and investment in the developing world.

Nor is the developed world immune. While the overall numbers of HIV infections and AIDS have been declining in the U.S., the proportion of cases involving women and minorities is rising. In Chicago alone, 28,000 people are living with HIV. Some 67 percent of them are African-Americans.

Congress has before it an important response: the reauthorization of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, which last year provided $1.6 billion for treatment of HIV/AIDS patients. Renewal of the act, which has been approved by the Senate, awaits a vote of the House. The need is still there, from Cape Town to Chicago.

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