Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - Monday, October 25, 1999
As a series in last week's Chronicle illustrated, many African leaders are in unfathomable denial about an epidemic of horrendous proportions that is decimating their countries.
Six million children in eastern and southern Africa have been orphaned. Nearly 10 million HIV-positive women -- 4 out of every 5 infected in the world -- live in Africa. And 87 percent of HIV-infected youngsters can be found in Africa. AIDS kills annually 10 times more Africans than die in wars. The workforce is being depleted and small gains in development are threatened.
"By any measure, the HIV-AIDS epidemic is the most terrible undeclared war in the world, with the whole of sub-Saharan Africa a killing field,'' said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.
Guesses from inside and outside Africa about the reason for the denial include a taboo on conversations about sex and a feeling among leaders that they are helpless to change people's behavior, especially that of African men who have many sexual partners. It is not unusual to have an audience boo a speaker who suggests that men use condoms during intercourse.
Some officials said that even though many Africans understand AIDS' dangers and how it is contracted, they stubbornly refuse to connect that danger to their own risky behavior.
There are exceptions, of course, and Uganda should be a model for the rest of the continent. President Yoweri Museveni regularly speaks out on AIDS, encourages people to have confidential HIV tests and promotes community-based care for people with advanced AIDS. Because of the aggressive and open approach to dealing with the epidemic, infection rates have declined since the early '90s.
The United States has its own problems in battling AIDS, but it has an obligation nevertheless to share more than a decade of AIDS- related research and wisdom.
A continent is at risk of annihilation because its leaders and people refuse to confront the reality of AIDS. The world must use both pressure and support to deal with this calamity.
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