Countries with high national debts and low GNP such as Mozambique experience greater difficulties in providing the care and support to the infected and affected. HIV/AIDS results in greater number of illness and death especially among the working class. This results in increased cases of absenteeism which results in more work for employees already present required to stand in for their colleagues hence leading to higher overtime expenditure, overworking of the finite workforce which causes exhaustion. In situations where the workers are deceased it results in a loss of skilled workers that are quite difficult to replace and permanent decrease in labour force for a period of time.
A drop in quality and quantity of the final product is a corollary of this as well as productivity. The International Labour Organization observed that labour force in 2020 will be an estimated 10-22 percent smaller (about 11. 5 million fewer) than it would have been if HIV and AIDS in countries such as Kenya, Malawi and Botswana was not a factor (ILO, 2000). Government income also declines as tax revenues fall and expenditure is focused on dealing with HIV.
African countries require diversification, greater exportation of goods and services and foreign investment to expand their existing economies. However the increased cost of labour due to HIV and AIDS coupled with low profit margins tend to make them undesirable to foreign industries thus limiting their economic growth.
SOCIAL
HIV and AIDS propagate poverty, insecurity and uncertainty. Studies in Botswana show that every income earner is likely to acquire an additional dependent over the next ten years due to AIDS. Households in Africa where poverty is rampant are expected to suffer increased poverty from the care and support to be provided to the infected. In addition many cases involve the infected being the income earner thus will require other means of acquiring money to be undertaken ranging from boys quitting school so as to be part of the labour force to young women forced to turn to prostitution.
Expenses related to funeral are substantial as they further compound the issue of income coupled with the high medical fees and caregivers decreased contribution to the workforce and increased emotional and financial drain. Time and other household resources are seemingly exclusively devoted to the infected. Basic necessities are compromised as electricity, clothing and even water may either be forgone or used in a minimal capacity. Food budgets become tighter leading to an insufficient amount of food available.
DEMOGRAPHIC
AIDS is largely concentrated in the Central, East and Southern regions of Africa referred to as the AIDS-Belt (Hyde, 2002). Approximately 40 percent of the world’s population resides in Sub-Saharan Africa whilst housing 63 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS globally which was 24. 5 million people in 2005 and currently is 22. 4 million people.
The pandemic has continued to adversely affect development of countries and even continents. The disease infects individuals in the most prolific age group. About half of the people living with HIV were infected at age 25 while most die from opportunistic infections around age 35 which also leads to the distortion of age structures, killing those who are in prime working condition for example Botswana, according to a projected population structure carried out by UNAIDS in 2000, showed that if the current levels of death and infection then continued there would be more people aged 80 than 45 years as most individuals 20-30 years old would have fallen prey to the disease. Consequences in relation to demography are significant.
Life expectancy, the estimated average number of years a person could expect to live if age-specific death rates prevail throughout his or her life, in regions with high prevalence rates, percentage of the adult population aged15-49 years infected with HIV at a given moment in time (UNAIDS, 2000), such as Swaziland and Malawi show an estimated 50 percent drop due to AIDS mortality.
Life expectancy in most countries in Africa would be at least 50 years or greater but countries such as Botswana and Namibia who boast more than 20 percent prevalence have an estimated drop between 24-42 years in life expectancy (imf. org). Women accounted for 48 percent of all adults living with HIV worldwide and 69 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa due to their bio-physiology, vulnerability to rape and assigned gender roles among others. In Kenya HIV prevalence rates in women was at 7. 7 percent compared to the 4 percent in men (NACC, 2006: Daily Nation- October12, 2006: 3).
The youth are a t the greatest risk as half of the new infections worldwide are confined to the 15-24 age group of who young women account for majority of the infected. Around 6,000 youth become infected with HIV every day(UNAIDS, 2006). Most of the infected die within ten years due to lack of treatment leaving behind shattered families and crippled prospects for sustainable development (Republic of Kenya, 2005). The number of AIDS orphans has increased since the pandemic started. In Kenya there were 39. 000 orphans in 1987, 968,287 in 2001,1,780,557 in 2004 and the number of orphans in 2010 was expected to be around 2,204,115 (Republic of Kenya, 2003).
AIDS orphans tend to suffer emotional and psychological trauma from losing their parents and hardships they will be forced to encounter. They also lack a suitable guardian or mentor, as they may also have to leave school if they were attending, which hinders their general development.
EDUCATIONAL
HIV/AIDS and education are inversely proportional as arise in HIV prevalence results in reduced performance in the education sector which ranges from low attendance and enrolment to lower level of academic achievement. There are low enrolment and high dropout rates due to the high number of AIDS orphans, street children and child prostitutes.
The World Bank reported that school attendance by 15-20 year olds in Tanzania was cut in half by households that lost an adult female (World Bank, 1995). There is an increase in finances devoted to orphans so as to provide basic necessities as well as reading and writing materials which has resulted in reduced funds for other educational resources such as learning and teaching materials which leads to low quality output.
Teachers are also more time off to attend to sick relatives or funerals for dead relatives causing a disruption in the learning process even with the availability ofsubstitute teachers because methods used to deliver the curriculum differ leading to confusion among students that may contribute to reduced academic achievement. Knowledge on HIV/AIDS and sexuality as well as other important life skills are requisite hence requiring teachers to undergo training or retraining in the event of new information.
Illness and death to teachers from primary to tertiary levels has not only reduced the number of teachers available as demonstrated in the case of Zambia where the number of teachers dying was equivalent to two-thirds of the total annual output from the country’s teacher training college (Kelly, 1999) but also the capacity to train new ones resulting in the inability of supply to meet the demand for personnel. National resources are also redistributed away from the education sector and towards activities concerned with the management of HIV/AIDS resulting in declining quality of education.
PSYCHO-EMOTIONAL
A positive HIV diagnosis results in fear. It may be associated with the worry that co-workers, friends or family will reject and/or abandon them. It may also be a reaction to lifetime treatment they are to undergo, how illnesses like influenza mayaffect th em and having a shorter life span. Depression is conventional among the infected. They feel hopeless to their inability to access treatment or benefit from it.
They are more likely to seclude themselves from others and more introverted lifestyle due to stigma attached to HIV. This results in overall damage to their self- image leaving them feeling undesirable leading to them contemplating or even committing suicide. Others may be prone to post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) whereby they are characterized by their anxiety, emotional numbness and even complete avoidance of the issue especially after diagnosis, onset of physical symptoms or hospitalization.
Partners are involved in emotional trauma when one of them is tested positive for HIV which may result in dissolution of the relationship due to expression of anger at the news which leads to quarreling and may progress to violence. This is common in African societies where discussion of intimate relations and sexuality are considered taboo. Parents who are infected show less interest in their children due to dramatic mood swings they experience leading to the children growing fearful and anxious (Sr.Mallmann, Catholic Aids Action, 2002).
The child’s world also undergoes many changes as family structures and responsibilities shift with the progression of the infection within the parent. Caregivers and breadwinners also suffer from stress, worry, anger and sadness among other emotions from the spectrum related to finances, medical bills, death and basically their daily lives.
RELIGIOUS
Religion and HIV/AIDS have had a complex relationship. Religion is caught between helping and supporting people living with HIV/AIDS and imposing certain moral codes on society in line with respective religious beliefs. Among many methods employed there are three methods that take precedence in relation to religion.
First was to place blame on the victim interpreting AIDS as divine punishment for engaging in sexual behavior that did not comply with traditional norms which involved fornication (sex before marriage) and adultery (sex with other married individuals). Secondly was to embrace the victim seeing HIV/AIDS as a disease which can and should be prevented by avoiding certain behaviors thereby creating a degree of separation between the disease and sexual morality. Lastly was assisting the victim by defining the disease as a public health crisis while maintaining the sacredness of traditional moral norms hence viewing the pandemic as a deterrent to sinful behavior.
The continued advocacy of condom use is seen by religion as condoning premarital and extramarital sexual activity thus leading to many religious people refusing to see the condom as a preventative measure against HIV transmission. This view along with various other reasons such as later age marriage and widespread sexual activity among young people have led many to ask reduced strict adherence to dogma but more guidance and assistance to be adopted by those in faith communities especially their leaders.
REFERENCES
- Hyde, K. (2002). The impact of HIV/AIDS on formal schooling in Uganda. Center for International Education, University of Sussex. Institute of Education. USA.
- International Labour Organization(ILO)(2000). HIV/AIDS as a security issue. Washington/Brussels: International Crisis Group(ICG).
- Kelly, M. J. (1999). The Encounter between HIV/AIDS and Education. University of Zambia. Lusaka.
- Kowalewski, M. R. (Spring, 1990). Religious Construction of the AIDS Crisis. Sociological Analysis . Association for the Sociology of Religion, Inc.. Vol. 51, NO. 1, pp. 91-96.