Over 30 million people worldwide have been infected with the HIV-AIDS virus. With such high numbers, the troubling fact is that 95% of those cases permeate Africa. Obviously AIDS cannot be cured or reversed in any sense, however with proper insight and treatment it can be controlled. The means for proper treatment is exactly what Africa lacks, in comparison to other regions. Nearly 2. 3 million deaths occurred in 2003 within the sub-Saharan region of Africa.
The efforts have been increased by various organizations and government spending to treat the disease, however the virus is still spreading and kills thousands upon thousands of Africans each year. Throughout this paper, I will look at some of the steps that have been taken in order to contain the virus in regards to Africa, and the effectiveness of them. In Botswana, the percentage of people living with HIV/AIDS has doubled since 1992 from 20% to 40%. A third of the country was infected by 1995. The echo of increasing numbers loomed over surrounding countries as 3. 2 million were newly diagnosed in 2003 and 2.
3 million Africans died the previous year. In comparison with Thailand (a country known for its drug and sex trafficking) with fewer anti-AIDS campaigns the infection rates are still drastically lower, at 2%. The region of sub-Saharan Africa is the worst in terms of infection. Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, and Lesotho are all similar in the sense that they have infection rates reaching merely 40%. Over 11 million children are orphaned by AIDS within the sub-Saharan region. Throughout the 27 million that are infected, 10 million of those are people between the ages of 15-24.
3 million of those people are under 15 years of age. Almost half of the entire pregnant demographic in Francistown, Botswana in main hospitals were tested positive for the virus. When these women give birth, their children will have up to a 90% chance of contracting HIV. To conquer the high rates of infection, there have been a plethora of educational programs, distribution of condoms, and various treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. However, such std’s such as syphilis and gonorrhea create genital sores and ulcers which make it easier for the spread of HIV.
This has caused experts in the field to reconsider old theories about how the virus spreads throughout Africa. Former member of Sociology and Public Health Department- Dr. Martina Morris, traveled to Uganda in 1993 to garner data based on sexual behavior between HIV positive Africans. Dr. Morris helped to create a computer based program to predict the spread of the virus in a given population base, with factors focusing on the number of sexual partners which people shared and the duration of such relationships. Dr. Morris also conducted similar surveys in both the United States and Thailand.
Throughout the survey, she did not find similar results which compared to Uganda. The survey showed that both the average male in Uganda and the United States claimed almost the same amount of sexual partners in their lives. However, having the same amount of sexual partners did not result in the same number of infections. The infection rates in Uganda loomed around 18% while in the United States, the rates never exceeded 1%. What is even more astounding, is that in Thailand- over 65% of men reporting to have had 10 or more sexual partners had an infection rate just over 2%.
The Ugandan men in the study, claimed to have had maintained 2 or more long term sexual relationships during one time. Dr. Morris concluded that having sexual contact with a prostitute who has the HIV-AIDS virus is not as bad as having a long term relationship with someone who has the HIV-AIDS virus. Dr. Morris believes that the likelihood of getting the HIV-AIDS virus during sexual contact can be as low as one in one hundred to one in a thousand. Per se, a man can have sexual relationships with hundreds of different women, and potentially only one of them will get the virus from him.
Although, having continuous sexual relationships with the same person, in a long term relationship with someone who has the virus, is more likely to contract HIV-AIDS. One of the most controversial aspects of Uganda’s distinctiveness was their use of condoms. Up until the mid 1990s, strong traditionalist and catholic views bestowed a strong distaste for them. However, NGOs and doctors knew condoms were bound to play an essential part in HIV-AIDS control. In 2000-1, 4% of men reported to use a condom with their last cohabiting partner, however 59% reported to having used one with their last non-cohabiting partner.
Among nineteen different African countries with knowledge of condom usage from ages 15-24 in men with their last casual partner during that time, Uganda came third, under Botswana and Zimbabwe. The infection of the virus can vary with the concentration of the virus within the blood. The more virus, the more likely the virus will contract into genital fluids and be passed while having sexual contact. The estimates also show that one who has recently contracted the virus is as much as a hundred times more likely to transmit it to another partner rather than someone who has been infected for a longer period of time.
In order to conquer the number of increasing orphaned children (up to 11 million) HIV-AIDS needs to get under control. Four of the worst countries infected in Africa are Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. These countries are taking efforts in order to protect the orphaned children. For example, the government in Botswana encourages their communities to care for the orphans by offering up their homes to the children. The Botswana government is also turning to institutional care only if it is a last resort. The cost of caring for such orphans that have been taken into institutional care is three to five hundred dollars (yearly).
This number happens to be three times the annual income of an average person in Africa. Although, these institutions are not ideal. Overpopulation is a major factor and contributes to lack of care and proper treatment. I interviewed my friend Alexander Ott who worked for Good Samaritan in Africa two years ago. While discussing HIV-AIDS and the conditions of the hospitals, he stated, I arrived by bus in a city named Nakata bay on the edge of malawi. We were there to visit a hospital. We walked to the top of a hill where the hospital sat.
We entered the hospital the lobby had no furniture in it and was full of people with many different illnesses. The doctor showing us through the building explained that many of them were suffering from complications caused by HIV. As we walked through the halls of the deteriorating hospital we tried to keep from stepping on the feet of the hundreds of individuals who lined the walls of the dark hallways. The doctor explained that many of them had been there for days, some for weeks waiting to receive some health care from the staff of around 25 nurses and doctors.
It was a hopeless environment By the end of the day many of those who sat in the hallways would be dead and another individual would take their place in the darkness. The majority of the orphans are against the odds to stay in school. For example, 52% of the orphans in Kenya with HIV-AIDS do not attend any sort of schooling.
Without proper education, and the assumption which they have the virus themselves, these orphans are commonly shunned, forced into the realm of prostitution or child labor. Copious amounts of the children orphaned by the virus are not adequately treated illnesses due to the fact that it is assumed they are already infected with HIV-AIDS.
Africans believe that they will soon die anyways, and do not want to waste such precious life along with antibiotics with a high monetary value. One of the steps to conquer this can be seen in Botswana. In 1999, Botswana established a National Orphan Program which responded to the immediate needs of such children.
The services which they provided included- reviewing and developing policies, strengthen and build institutional capacity, provide the service of social welfare, and to evaluate and monitor various activities. Since 1999, the program has been successful , continuing to help the needs of orphans throughout Botswana.
Despite such efforts to educate and treat HIV-AIDS victims, few signs of surpassing the hardships of the epidemic are shown. For example, there may be a glimpse of light while there is decent funding, but when the funding dissipates, as does the hopefulness. In 2000, Nigeria had enough funding to provide life extending AIDS medication to people in need of them. However, there was only enough funding for 10,000 people and the treatment only lasted merely a year.
Chief medical consultant for the AIDS treatment plan of Nigeria- Dr.John Idoko stated, “Many African countries are going to have these problems because of the sheer numbers of people crying out to be treated. ” He goes on to state, “If we have a problem with 10,000, consider what will happen with 100,000 or 200,000. ” In other efforts to help HIV-AIDs victims- Patches for Hope is a notable cause. Patches for Hope provides medications for victims in the region of Cambodia. The services they provide are clinic visits, hospice care, food programs, and rent. They have been a big help for people below poverty level, mainly women.
The women who contribute make patchwork quilts, in which all of the money is donated to help others lives. One of the biggest contributes to the effort in order to help control HIV-AIDS is the government willing to allow private pharmaceutical companies the right to sell antiviral drugs within the international market, as long as the antiviral drugs conform to the National Drug Authority guidelines. These generic drugs would cost 1/4th as much as brand named drugs. This would be significant in the sense that it would make HIV-AIDS medication more affordable to more than 30 million people worldwide.
However, pharmaceutical companies (particularly of brand names) strongly oppose the use of generic drugs due to safety reasons. The biggest concerns at the time, were the use of combo treatments. The two medications used for such treatments were Triomune and Triviro, which lacked approval from the FDA, but won approval of WHO. Even though WHO is not a regulatory entity, it was able to set up a review process to analyze the combo generics discovering whether or not their evaluations would lead to quality and safety. The FDA had their doubts. “You can’t just mix them together and put them on the market.
You have no idea how it’s going to work in tandem. You need at least a years worth of clinical trials and testing,” stated a pharmaceutical spokesman. Disagreement can clearly be seen, as deputy chief medical officer Dr. Dybul of US Global AIDS stated, “Our prediction is to use them if all possible, the activists should be jumping up and down shouting ‘hallelujah,’ this is a major movement in international health. ” Various donor nations outside of Africa, including the United States have increased funding for HIV-AIDS treatment. This offers a new sense of hope for tens of thousands who up until now had no other treatment options.
The African government, along with various other countries help, will strengthen the war against HIV-AIDS and hopefully one day we can see a cure or some sort of conquering over the virus. However, the attitudes towards HIV-AIDS need to change in order for this to happen. People need to overcome their fears against HIV-AIDS and truly understand the only way to overcome the virus is to help. Whether it be more funding or more scientific research. HIV-AIDS was existing in the Kinshasa region by 1959.
It began to from its epidemic there by the 1970s, due to its vast sexual networks and tumultuous socio economic conditions. For over a decade, it was an unrecognised and silent epidemic. During that silent epidemic era, subgroups of the virus carried itself outside of the epicentre to infect western, eastern, and southern Africa. These patterns were shaped by their vessels of communication, mobility, and most importantly- gender relation and sexual conduct.
What is unusual about HIV-AIDS, is that the virus was wholly established in a silent manner, within the heterosexual demographic. People have wondered why Africa has it the worst, it is simple- because it spurred the first epidemic.
HIV-AIDS has reached a critical point in its history. Antiretroviral drugs shifted the view on an amalgam of things. These things included human rights, medical administration and their newfound dilemmas with combo medications, various partnerships between recipients and donors, and relationships between doctors and patients. By 2005, HIV-AIDS was seen as ‘the end of the beginning’. 25 million Africans now had HIV-AIDS. 12 million of these Africans were children who had lost a parent, and over 13 million of these Africans were now dead.
Experts on the virus swore that the worst had not even been seen it, for it was still to come. Not just in Africa, but for the world as a whole. Director of the Global Fund- Richard Feachem, stated that the HIV-AIDS pandemic had not even peaked. That it would not peak before 2050 or quite possibly the year 2060. However, Feachem’s speculation was not inevitable. Of course the means in order to eradicate the virus does not exist, however the means to contain it does exist. This can only mean one thing, the HIV/AIDS virus no longer holds the initiative which had explained its success.