Panafrican News Agency - September 27, 2001
Felix 'Machi Njoku, PANA Correspondent

The pandemic has claimed millions of lives on the continent.

"The statistics gives one a nightmare. The number of people killed in the various conflicts on the continent are in no way comparable to the number of lives we have lost and still to lose as a result of this scourge which has no cure," Rawlings told reporters on his arrival at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the Kenyan capital.

The UN envoy on voluntarism is on a trip to promote the campaign against HIV/AIDS.

He said even if drugs were to be made available, it would not be able to cater for up to 10 percent of the people affected on the continent, thus making prevention and good morality the best options for containing the disease.

HIV/AIDS has proved too difficult to avoid because it has to do with "the sweet and irresistible" part of peoples' lives, he said, adding that the best advice he could give is for people to voluntarily take it upon themselves to carry out tests to find out their sero-status.

"It is more dangerous not to want to know because if you do have it, you are going to contribute to the spread.

You are going to hurt your family, you friends and concubines or ladies with whom you have contact with and vice versa.

"On the other hand, if you have the courage to test, and find you are negative, from that point onwards, you would know how to conduct your life in such a way that you do not catch AIDS," he said.

It is estimated that 2.3 million adults are living with HIV and that some 700 people die daily from HIV-related infections in Kenya.

Seventy percent of some 36 million adults and children in the world, living with AIDS in 2000, were in sub-Saharan Africa where 3.6 million are said to be infected every year, according to the latest global data on the pandemic.

"Too many of us are taking this issue for granted.

HIV/AIDS was detected in Africa at about the same time it was detected in the white man's country.

"How come it has risen exponentially here when it is decreasing there? The answer is humiliating and very painful: Some of us have been a little too irresponsible. In Africa, we enjoy so much liberty with the relationship we have with our partners and our wives. We tend to abuse the freedom that we enjoy with our partners instead of respecting it," Rawlings said.

"I am not here to tell you that you are going to die of AIDS. That you already know," he added. Rawlings said the rate of infection in Ethiopia was over 700 per day compared to 200 per day in Ghana and 40 per day in Botswana.

He said Africans who prefer to live a life of self-denial must begin to accept the reality today, warning that if HIV/AIDS was not treated with the seriousness and urgency it requires, Africa would be returning to a primitive and underdeveloped era.

Rawlings also urged the media to "give the shock treatment to our people, to wake our people up to the realities of what is happening."

In response to a question, he wondered whether it was not possible to apply the same technology used in producing vehicle tubes and tyres in our countries, to the production condoms so as to make them cheap and available to everyone.

"I buy condoms myself," he said, pulling out a pack from the inside pocket of his blue jacket, a practical gesture that plunged the audience into subdued laughter.

Rawlings arrived in Nairobi from Ethiopia on a three-day visit to promote voluntarism and help combat HIV/AIDS and malaria.

He departs Kenya Sunday for Tanzania on a similar mission.

Meanwhile, he is scheduled to meet Kenyan Vice-President George Saitoti and Public Health Minister Sam Ongeri, the chair of the National AIDS Control Council, Mohammed Abdullah as well as people living with the HIV/AIDS, and UN volunteers.

The former Ghanaian leader is one of four eminent persons appointed by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to support and strengthen voluntarism world-wide, in keeping with the 1997 proclamation of 2001 as the International Year of Volunteers by the General Assembly.

The other eminent persons are Spain's Crown Prince Felipe de Asturias, former UN Population Fund chief, Nafis Sadik and the founder of Body Shop, Anita Roddick.

Rawlings left office in January after ruling Ghana for 19 years.
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