The need for prevention
1) 72% of AIDS deaths in 2006 were in sub-Saharan Africa.
2) The rapidly growing demand for treatment will soon exceed available human and financial resources if it continues at its current rate.
3) The economy
•In Nigeria 20 per cent of those currently living with AIDS are civil servants.
•Zambia could lose 20 per cent of its workforce by 2020.
•Mozambique may lose more than 19,000 teachers to AIDS in the years between 2000 - 2010.
•Agricultural production in Kenya, for example, is projected to drop by 2.4 per cent by 2010.
4) Life expectancy, once improving, has fallen by more than 15 years in five countries and by six-to-15 years in nine others. A child born today in Zambia can expect to live for only 32 years.
5) Infant mortality is again on the rise in several countries, due to HIV infection and reduced care resulting from parental deaths. A child whose mother dies is 3.3 times more likely to die herself; more than 12 million African children have been orphaned due to AIDS.
6) Outbreaks of drug resistant Tuberculosis in HIV positive patients, and not just in Africa, that could spread to the rest of the population.
Barriers to successful prevention
•Inadequate resources – lack of hospitals and clinics, equipment, and medicine; short tracked prevention activities with little or no monitoring. Testing and counseling facilities are available only to about 24 per cent of the region’s population.
•Insufficient education among health care providers and among teachers about HIV/ AIDS, resulting in their inability to relay accurate information.
•Stigma and discrimination against those living with HIV and AIDS and a failure to take socio-cultural factors into account in prevention programs including sensitivities about open discussion of sex in most societies.
•Testing plays a critical role in HIV prevention by helping people to cope with the disease and avoid unknowingly infecting others, but fewer than 10 per cent of people in Africa know their HIV status. 13% tested in 2005 were found to be positive though half of those said they felt they were not at risk for being infected.
•Treatment costs approximately US$30 a year per infected person but spending is less US$10 a year per person in most African countries.
Treatment progress
•Botswana, Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia have all eliminated user fees for HIV treatment.
•Demand for HIV testing increased by over 10 times when treatment became available in one area of South Africa.
•By June 2006, the number of patients on antiretroviral therapy in Africa increased ten-fold from the end of 2003.
•In developed countries, the availability of treatment has contributed to a 70 percent reduction of AIDS deaths and in Brazil, where treatment is widely available, life expectancy for HIV positive patients has increased by about 5 years. It IS possible to achieve this!
•It has been reported that the there is a stabilizing trend in the majority of Africa for the number of new infections and AIDS deaths, though in several countries, including South Africa, the epidemic shows no signs of stopping.
References
World Health Organization (WHO)
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 2006 AIDS Epidemic update
Avert.org
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