Inter Press Service - July 23, 1999
Judith Achieng'

In its annual report, "Progress Of Nations 1999", the UN Children's Fund (Unicef), says the AIDS pandemic has surpassed armed conflict as the number one killer in the region.

"HIV/AIDS has reached catastrophic proportions in Africa. The many gains made in the last 25 years have dramatically reduced," Unicef deputy executive director Stephen Lewis told journalists in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi this week.

Of the 144 million people who have so far succumbed to AIDS globally, more than 11 million have been Africans. Last year alone, two million people in Africa died from the virus, he says.

A staggering 48 percent of world's HIV/AIDS cases are in eastern and southern Africa, making it the hardest hit region in the world.

Last year alone, Unicef says, some 1.4 million men, women and children in the region died of AIDS, twice the number of people killed in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The epidemic has also impacted heavily on hospitals, where up to 70 percent of most African hospital beds are occupied by patients with AIDS-related illnesses. "Throughout the continent, there is almost no more treatment of any other medical condition - there is only room for death," says Lewis.

The economic implications in terms of the cost on human resources and skilled labour are even more daunting. "Never has Africa faced such a plague," notes Lewis. "We are confronting a deadly virus that has ripped apart the social fabric of societies across Africa, creating a generation of orphans who face an uncertain and frightening future."

Lewis says the deaths of adults, resulting from AIDS, has violated all the tenets of the Convention on the Rights of Child, which gives a child a right to food, shelter, medical attention and education.

Africa accounts for up to six million orphans, a figure representing up to 70 percent of the global figure. "The extended family which lies at the heart of the African cultural infrastructure is being stripped off its meaning day after day," says Lewis.

The report also highlights gender disparities such as girls' biological, physical and social vulnerability which place the girl child at risk of infection and the impact of gender discrimination.

A recent study conducted in Kenya's Western Province found at least 25 percent of girls of ages between 15 and 19 HIV positive, compared with four percent of boys of the same age group, while in Botswana, more than 30 percent of adolescent pregnant women are infected.

Sub-Saharan African adolescence girls are six times more likely to be infected than boys of the same age, according to the report.

In Rwanda, which is still recovering from the 1994 genocide, up to 35 percent of women seeking antenatal care are HIV positive.

The report reveals that while nine out of 10 people in Africa with HIV virus do not know they are infected, those who do rarely tell their relatives and spouses.

The media has also done no better. Many African newspapers do not mention AIDS in their obituary columns. "Behind the shield of silence, the stigma and shame associated with AIDS only enable the epidemic to grow," the report warns.

"When historians look at Africa, they see a fatal war of denial that has lasted for too long, and continues to go on," says Lewis. "Everywhere we went, workers raised the issue of insensitivity and denial of men."

"The silence and stigma surrounding this terrible illness are fueling its spread and stroking a lethal intolerance we must resist with all our might," says Janat Mukwaya, Uganda's minister for Gender, Social Development and Labour.

To reduce the spread of the scourge, Lewis says the disease must be an obsession for every leader like in the case of Uganda and Senegal, the success stories which launched large scale education and prevention programmes.

Uganda, the first country to be hit hard by the epidemic, has successfully used massive public awareness education and campaigns in the fight against the scourge.

Since the government of president Yoweri Museveni embarked on a major public awareness campaign, Uganda has seen infection rates dropping dramatically from 38 percent in 1991 to as low as 7.3 percent in many areas.

"We took AIDS not as a health issue but as a problem which all Ugandans must be involved in solving regardless of their work," says Mukwaya.

In Senegal, infection rates have stabilised and are expected to start going down. Among women and men of age 25, condom use is reported to have risen dramatically among the so called "non- regular partners" from a meager five percent in 1990 to 60 percent by 1997.

But the two countries, like the rest of the continent, are still faced with the uncertain challenge of looking after their orphans.

Uganda has some 1.8 million AIDS orphans, the highest in any country in the world. This calls for resources which for Africa, are not forthcoming. Lewis accuses the international community of paying less attention to Africa's most urgent problems, while it was able to act on the Kosovo Crisis.

He says it is "indefensible, inexcusable, repugnant, offensive and ugly" for the West spend some 40 billion US Dollars on participating in a war in the Balkans and prepare for the region's economic restoration, while less than one percent of that figure goes to saving innocent lives Africa.

"Everybody talks about a Marshall plan for the Balkans. What about a Marshall plan for Africa?," he asks. (END/IPS/ja/mn/99)
990723
IP990705

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1999. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 1999. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .