South African Press Association (Johannesburg) - September 4, 2003

"This was a wake-up call in bringing to the fore the inadequacies of our health systems," Zambian Health Minister Dr Brian Chituwo said.

Chituwo added: "How I wish the world would respond to HIV/Aids in a similar manner than it responded to Sars."

According to Dr Antoine Kabore, the WHO's regional director of communicable diseases, there were only three suspected cases of Sars on the continent -- in Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia.

All three the patients were of Asian origin and had some contact with countries affected by the disease.

"No local transmission of the disease was reported in those three African countries," he reported.

"Sars is the perfect example of a health challenge related to globalisation," Kabore said.

Dr Edugie Abebe, director of public health in Nigeria, said Africa was very lucky to have been spared.

"Otherwise most of us in the room... would have been in quarantine."

But she warned: "This is just a teaser of what might come in future. We have a looming epidemic of influenza that might come up any time.

"Africa being spared of Sars was just a warning signal to say: 'Get your house in order'," Abebe said.

The almost negligible brush the continent had with Sars came as good news amid much doom and gloom about diseases like HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

More than 90 percent of the global cases and deaths associated with these three diseases are found in Africa, and their prevalence was not declining, the WHO says in a report discussed at the meeting.

Africa has about 29,4-million people living with HIV/Aids.

"Approximately 3,5-million new infections occurred in the region in 2002, while the epidemic claimed the lives of an estimated 2,4-million people.

"Ten million young people aged 15-24 years and almost three million children under 15 years are living with HIV/Aids," the report says.

"Despite reports of observed reductions in new infections in a few countries, the incidence has continued to increase in most countries."

In the past decade, tuberculosis resurged in Africa as a direct result of HIV/Aids.

"Between 1995 and 2000, the region experienced a 95,1 percent increase in total reported cases..."

Malaria causes over 900,000 deaths and results in an estimated economic loss of US12-billion annually, according to the report.

Access to measures to curb these diseases remains very low, it says.

But Kabore still had more good news.

The number of cases of Guinea worm disease, or dracunculiasis, in Africa had declined by 98,5 percent from 1989 to 2002, he told delegates.

Some 13,150 cases were reported last year.

The number of localities where the disease was endemic had decreased by 92 percent between 1989 and 2002.

Dracunculiasis is caused by drinking unfiltered water containing the parasite.

There are no vaccines or drugs for the disease, but it can be prevented by filtering or boiling water first.

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