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HIV and Aids in Sub Saharan Africa
Introduction
Sub Saharan Africa has a very serious HIV / AIDS epidemic with
millions of its people living with the disease. It has now become a
human tragedy in many areas of the world, but most affected is sub
Saharan Africa. It is no coincidence that the countries suffering most
with HIV / AIDS are also the poorest. HIV / AIDS is now considered to
be the single most important impediment to social progress to many
countries in Africa .This report will analyse the current situation
using up to date sources from articles, books and the World Wide Web.
UN Millennium development goals
At the start of the new millennium, all 191 UN member states pledged
to meet all the UN Millennium goals by the year 2015. These goals
covered such issues as, poverty, hunger, education, aid, gender
equality, child mortality, pre natal care, environmental
sustainability and HIV / Aids. All UN states have agreed to, "Halt and
begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS."
(http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/). At Present, the HIV prevalence
rates are still rising in sub Saharan Africa. The rate is seven ties
higher in developing countries than it is in developed countries.
Many different schemes are trying to reverse this trend. These schemes
include,â?¦. Oxfam, who work to help ease developing world suffering
believe that the only scheme that will help reduce HIV / AIDS in
developing countries is to cancel world debt.
"Unsustainable debt represents a huge barrier to progress in the fight
against HIV / AIDS. Repayments to creditors by some of the poorest
countries in the world are diverting the resources needed to respond
to current suffering."
(http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/debt_aid/bp25_debt_hivaids.htm)
Oxfam and other similar organisations believe that countries with high
prevalence rates could help them selves to solve the aids epidemic if
they did not have to meet large debt repayments to the developed
world.
Concurring the epidemic
Unfortunately this disease is not easily concurred. The disease is
still today considered to be taboo, making it difficult to talk to
The issues discussed in 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa are extremely complex, as they are all interrelated and compound the severity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic; however, Nolen does a tremendous job of disassembling the umbrella term of HIV/AIDS into different themes. Nolen’s presentation of poverty is very comprehensive, covering the impact of poverty on AIDS while presenting other points of view, and making the correct decision to debunk the connotation of AIDS as a “disease of poverty”. Nolen’s inclusion of all sides of the issue makes her presentation of poverty truly outstanding. Nolen accurately uses evidence and testimony to offer insight on poverty, AIDS, their connection, and their impact on each other. She correctly identifies that AIDS not only affects the lives of already impoverished people, but also sucks more people into poverty by weakening their health and removing their opportunities.
What would you say if I asked you to tell me what you think is causing the death of so many people in the horn of Africa? AIDS? Starvation? War? Would it surprise you if I told you that it all boils down to the women of Africa? Kofi Annan attempts to do just this in his essay “In Africa, Aids Has a Woman's Face.” Annan uses his work to tell us that women make up the “economic foundation of rural Africa” and the greatest way for Africa to thrive is through the women of Africa's freedom, power, and knowledge.
AIDS is slowly becoming the number one killer across the globe. Throughout numerous small countries, AIDS has destroyed lives, taken away mothers, and has left hopeless children as orphans. The problem remains that funding for the diseases’ medical research is limited to none. In the country Brazil, HIV/AIDS has been compared to the bubonic plague, one of the oldest yet, most deadly diseases to spread rapidly across Europe (Fiedler 524). Due to this issue, Brazil’s government has promised that everyone who has been diagnosed with either HIV or AIDS will receive free treatment; however, this treatment does not include help in purchasing HIV medications, that “carry astronomical price tags” (Fiedler 525). Generic drug companies have been able to produce effective HIV medications that are not as costly if compared to the prices given by the huge pharmaceutical companies. In contrast, the U.S. government has now intervened with these generic companies hindering them from making HIV medications, which may not be as efficient if made by the pharmaceutical companies. Not only are these drug companies losing thousands of dollars against generic drug companies, but also tremendous profit that is demanded for marketing these expensive drugs as well. “How many people must die without treatment until the companies are willing to lower their prices, or to surrender their patients so generic makers can enter market? (Fiedler 525).” With this question in mind, what ways can we eliminate the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the world? With research, education, testing, and funding we can prevent the spread of HIV to others and hopefully find a cure.
Infection with HIV does not necessarily mean that a person has AIDS, although people who are HIV-positive are often mistakenly said to have AIDS. In fact, a person can remain HIV-positive for more than ten years without developing any of the clinical illnesses that define and constitute a diagnosis of AIDS. In 1997 an estimated 30.6 million people worldwide were living with HIV or AIDS—29.5 million adults and 1.1 million children. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 1981, when the first AIDS cases were reported, and the end of 1997...
Africa is the second largest of the earth's seven continents, covering about twenty-two percent of the world's total land area. From its northern most point, to its southern most tip is the distance of nearly five thousand miles. Africa is both north and south of the equator. The Atlantic Ocean is located west of the continent, and the Indian Ocean is on the east. Width of the continent is also nearly five thousand miles. Although Africa is so large, much of it is inhabitable. Desert soils, which have little organic content, cover large areas. The Sahara Desert, in the northern part, covers more than one fourth of Africa, and the Kalahari Desert is in the southern part of the continent. These two deserts are a natural detriment to the African continent because they make it difficult to reach the inland where most of the people live. Although Africa is relatively close to Europe, travel by land over the Sahara desert is very prohibitive. Another topographical feature that also isolates the central region of Africa is the coastline.
Although the sub-Saharan region accounts for just 10% of the world’s population, 67% (22.5 million) of the 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS in 1998 were residents of one of the 34 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and of all AIDS deaths since the epidemic started, 83% have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (Gilks, 1999, p. 180). Among children under age 15 living with HIV/AIDS, 90% live in sub-Saharan Africa as do 95% of all AIDS orphans. In several of the 34 sub-Saharan nations, 1 out of every 4 adults is HIV-positive (UNAIDS, 1998, p. 1). Taxing low-income countries with health care systems inadequate to handle the burden of non-AIDS related illnesses, AIDS has devastated many of the sub-Saharan African economies. The impact of AIDS on the region is such that it is now affecting demographics - changing mortality and fertility rates, reducing lifespan, and ultimately affecting population growth.
The AIDS epidemic has reached disastrous proportions on the continent of Africa. Over the past two decades, two thirds of the more than 16 million people in the world infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, live in sub-Saharan Africa. It is now home to the largest number of people infected, with 70 percent of the world’s HIV-infected population. The problem with this ongoing human tragedy is that Africa is also the least equipped region in the world to cope with all the challenges posed by the HIV virus. In order to understand the social and economic consequences of the disease, it is important to study the relationship between poverty, the global response, and the effectiveness of AIDS prevention, both government and grassroots.
Compounding these exceptionally troubling numbers is a significant population with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Again estimates vary, but the United Nations projects the national prevalence rate to be 4.5 percent of the population. Other estimates place the rate as high as 12 percent in the urban population and 5 percent in rural regions. As a small “win”, the infection rate for HIV/AIDS has recently shifted downward due to significant UNAIDS/WHO efforts (Haiti – Health).
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) are generally transmitted through sexual contact, during unprotected sexual intercourse, some are also transmitted from mother to child during antenatal, intranatal and postnatal period and through unsafe blood, blood products, donated organs or tissues and contaminated needles, their consequences are more devastating and prevalent among women than men.1
By the year 2000, 58 million people have been infected by HIV/AIDS and alarming numbers such as 22 million would have already died. And the epidemic continues to spread. HIV/AIDS historically is considered to be one of the longest running worldwide epidemics that we have ever seen, and figures cannot be placed on the true death tolls or estimation of the damage as the cycle still is yet to reach an end (Whiteside 2002). With Africa being the worst hit continent in the world in terms of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the severity of it’s prevalence; one can only begin to question whether HIV/AIDS and poverty and directly connected or the inter-linkages exacerbate one or the other. This paper aims to argue that HIV/AIDS is a manifestation of poverty, and simultaneously poverty contributes to growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Development in response both to poverty reduction and to HIV/AIDS is complicated when both have multi-dimensional and multi-faceted impacts on a society, whether it be social, economic or human development impacts. This paper will argue that pre-existing socio economic conditions within a country such as high levels of poverty, poor sanitation, malnutrition, environmental degradation and poor public healthcare systems and limited access to preventative care are crucial factors in contributing to the transfer of the infection (Pasteur: 2000, Mann: 1999).
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, commonly known as HIV/AIDS is a disease, with which the human immune system, unlike in other disease, cannot cope. AIDS, which is caused by the HIV virus, causes severe disorder of the immune system and slowly progresses through stages which disable the body’s capability to protect and instead makes it vulnerable for other infections. The first blood sample to contain HIV was drawn in 1959 in Zaire, Africa while molecular genetics have suggested that the epidemic first began in the 1930s (Smallman & Brown, 2011). Currently, according to the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS, 35.3 million people worldwide are living with HIV. In 2012, an estimated 2.3 million people became newly infected with the virus and 1.6 million people lost their lives to AIDS (Fact Sheet, UNAIDS). It is due to the globalized international society that a disease which existed in one part of the world has managed to infect so many around the world. Globalization is narrowly defined by Joseph Stiglitz as "the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies" (Stiglitz, 2003). Globalization has its effects in different aspects such as economy, politics, culture, across different parts of the world. Like other aspects, globalization affects the health sector as well. In a society, one finds different things that connect us globally. As Barnett and Whiteside point out (2000), “health and wellbeing are international concerns and global goods, and inherent in the epidemic are lessons to be learned regarding collective responsibility for universal human health” (Barnett & Whiteside, 2000). Therefore, through all these global connections in the international society, t...
The AIDS virus is the most common disease, and with no cure, an infected person will die. It is estimated that 90 to 95 percent of AIDS infections occur in developing countries where the world’s worst living conditions exist.
The Centers for disease control (CDC) has declared AIDS a global pandemic. No one person or group is safe from contracting this virus; knowledge, and safety is the only way you can protect yourself. However, the first black South African diagnosed with AIDS was in 1987, and currently South Africa is home to over 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, making it the largest population on earth with people infected. (3)
...ile the pandemic will absolutely leverage the rate of financial development, structural alterations are furthermore expected to be one of the prime economic hallmarks of the AIDS pandemic (Arndt 427-449). The effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be visualized by the overwhelming change in mortality rate of South Africans. The yearly number of mortalities from HIV increased distinctly between the years 1997, when about 316,559 people died, and 2006 when an estimated 607,184 people died ("HIV AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA"). Those who are currently assuming the burden of the increase in mortality rate are adolescents and young adults. Virtually one-in-three females of ages 25-29, and over 25% of males aged 30-34, are currently living with HIV in South Africa (UNAIDS). The good news, thanks to better supply of ARV treatment, is that life-expectancy has risen vastly since 2005.
“With 3.7% of the population infected HIV/AIDS and thousands dying annually it is apparent that Nigeria’s concerns with HIV prevalence are disproportionately greater than that of the rest of the world.” Nigeria’s extreme cultural, socioeconomic, and religious diversity gives it a unique position as a microcosmic country dealing with the spread of HIV/AIDS. Because of its great diversity and similarity among other African nations, any success Nigeria has regarding HIV policy is likely to be duplicated by other nations in Africa and around the world. Over the past decade Nigeria’s policies concerning HIV/AIDS have been polarized. From 2005-2009 Nigeria’s HIV policy placed great emphasis on condom promotion as a method for halting the spread of HIV and preventing unwanted pregnancies. “In 2007 alone, nearly 180 million condoms were distributed through workplace programs, community mobilization, awareness events, health clinics, and through the private sector social marketing programs”. Since this time Nigeria has adopted a new policy for the years 2010-2015. This policy is a multi- pronged attack against the spread of HIV. Its main methods for halting this epidemic include: education and promotion of condom usage, and addressing biological related transmission (“dirty transfusions/needles” and mother to child transmissions). In this essay I will both address and criticize these policies.