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Africa |
AIDS
AIDS is not just a health issue, but constitutes an extraordinary challenge to African nations’ economic development
«The scourge of HIV/AIDS threatens all parts of the world, but sub-Saharan Africa is especially vulnerable because of a population already weakened by other infectious diseases, and ill-served by national health infrastructures under strain from a shortage of resources». That was the message Malik Patel, a defence economist and global affairs analyst, imparted at a meeting of the Cape Town-based Organization for Research and Development Associates, (ORDA), a non-governmental organization which specializes in public/private sector solutions to the continent’s problems.
Patel said that «sub-Saharan Africa is by far the region most vulnerable to infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis and malaria), and accounts for one-half of infectious disease deaths globally, despite comprising only about 10 percent of the world’s population.»
HIV/AIDS has had a larger impact on Africa than in any other part of the world, Patel added, noting that «roughly 80 percent of deaths from HIV/AIDS have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.» Patel pointed out that the United Nations Security Council, had recently declared HIV/AIDS «the worst infectious disease catastrophe since the Bubonic Plague.»
Patel says: «Today, roughly 25 million Africans south of the Sahara, are infected with HIV/AIDS, and in seven countries in southern Africa, about 20 percent of the adult population is infected. Because of the disease, life expectancy is being reduced by 20 years in countries such as Botswana and Zambia, and between 35 and 40 million children could be orphaned by the disease. Southern Africa has the fastest growing epidemic in the world».
Challenge to economic development
«AIDS is not just a health issue», Patel told his audience, but constitutes «"an extraordinary challenge"» to economic development for African nations. The precise economic impact of AIDS is not easy to estimate, but recent work by the World Bank, USAID (the US Agency for International Development) and others, suggests that once a country’s infection rate expands beyond 5 percent, there’s a powerful macro-economic impact that rebounds, which for the most heavily affected countries, can take as much as one, perhaps even one-and-a-half percent off their annual GDP. In one year that’s not a large impact, but if you add the total over 10 or 15 years, the impact becomes very, very large».
Patel stated that AIDS has had an especially hard effect on the professional class — a class crucial to the resurrection of civil society, economic growth, and maintenance of social stability. It has also taken a toll on investment in Africa. He recalled that after addressing a group of Western investors about a trip to South Africa, he wasn’t asked a single question about the ec-onomic climate in South Africa. What every one of these representatives of US firms wanted to talk about was HIV/AIDS — what it will mean for them and how the government is responding to it. I was quite taken aback by that.»
Patel stressed that from a security standpoint, «AIDS flourishes in an atmosphere of instability, uncertainty, and war, making democratic and economic transitions more challenging and difficult.» Pointing to HIV/AIDS success stories in Senegal and Uganda, he said, «I’m not a pessimist about Africa’s future», and he explained that «history and experience show that a disease like AIDS can be halted.»
Three main lessons
«In combating the killer disease», Patel said, «Three main lessons have been learned to date:
To illustrate how the disease is spreading, Dr. Salim Abdool-Karim of the Medical Research Council in Durban, said that in 1991, 0.6 percent of South Africa’s population was HIV-positive. In 200, 22 percent of South Africa’s sexually active population had tested positive for the AIDS virus. Abdool Karim said the HIV epidemic rate in southern Africa is reaching sky-high proportions because of the incredibly high rates of new infection in young women, especially in the 15 to 25 age range.
But although women have been the focus of AIDS prevention efforts, doctors and health workers have begun to realize that women cannot be held solely responsible. «Of course, both women and men are involved in the sexual spread of the disease in Africa, but study after study has shown that on average, men have more sexual partners than women,» Laurice Soal, a health economist, said, «and many men are reluctant to protect themselves against HIV‘bb.
By way of conclusion, it is interesting to note that in Zambia, a small, innovate youth project in Lusaka, the Youth Activist Organisation, saw the importance of targeting men in the AIDS prevention campaign, years ago. It’s founder, Holo Hachonda, says: «We realized that men were being left out of the reproductive health messages, even though their behaviour was crucial. Much of our work is to talk with fathers and sons about their responsibilities in preventing the pandemic».
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