Politics Aids 'threatens African security'

Sophie

in love
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Africa has more than 11 million Aids orphans

A senior UN official has warned that if more is not done to combat HIV/Aids then the security of African nations could be at stake, with the prospects of rising crime and more civil wars.
The comments of the UN Aids Programme director Michel Sidibe came at the opening of a major Aids conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Thousands of doctors, politicians and Aids activists have gathered for what is seen as an important opportunity for Aids experts to exchange ideas about best practice in combating the epidemic.
Mr Sidibe, painted a picture of a looming social catastrophe, says the BBC's Ishbel Matheson, in Nairobi.
Eleven million children have lost one or both parents to HIV/Aids and many of those, Mr Sidibe said, would either end up on the streets or become child soldiers - thus fuelling wars on an already turbulent continent.
He also predicted that Africa's security services would not be able to cope with the increased threat because they too have been seriously weakened by the epidemic.
In some places four out of every 10 soldiers are infected with the virus.

Flicker of hope

A new United Nations report, released at the start of the conference, said the Aids epidemic is the biggest challenge to improving the lives of people in Africa.
Some 15 million people are believed to have died from Aids in Africa.
But the disease can be contained with the right programmes and resources, the report said.

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Facts and figures on the impact of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa

"After two hard, painful decades of experience and accumulated knowledge - much of it gained in Africa - African governments and the international community are beginning to understand what is required."
The latest update gave praise to some countries on Sunday but warned others who were floundering in the face of the rampaging pandemic.
"They now need to apply this experience and knowledge more extensively. There are key gaps in most African national responses that deserve special attention as action against Aids in Africa is brought to scale."

The main headlines in the report are as follows:

- The biggest concern about HIV/Aids is in Southern Africa. In Botswana for example nearly 40% of the adult population is HIV positive.

- It sounds alarm for pregnant women in southern Africa.The World Health Organisation found that more than one in five tested at the end of 2002 had the Aids virus.

- The situation in East Africa is improving. The overall prevalence of HIV/Aids there "is slowly declining," the report said.

- Praise was also lavished on several countries in West Africa, which has the lowest prevalence rate of Africa's subregions.

New challenge

Despite this gloomy backdrop, the report - and Mr Sidibe - did see some positive signs.

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There is growing awareness of the scale of the problem

There is more money than ever available for combating HIV/Aids and the price of anti-Aids drugs is dropping.
The challenge now is to make sure those gains help the people really in need: Africa's poor and destitute who find themselves at the sharp end of this disease, our corrspondent says.
The International Conference on Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) is held every two years.
Drugs known as anti-retrovirals do not cure HIV - the virus which causes Aids - but they can delay its progress, giving sufferers the hope of a longer life.
At present, only a tiny number of Africans have access to the drugs, but recent changes in global trade rules mean the costs have fallen dramatically.
Kenya's health ministry this week launched a programme to supply subsidised anti-retrovirals to 6,000 people infected with HIV.
On Saturday, thousands of women took part in a 10-kilometre charity run through Nairobi to raise awareness about the role of women in caring for Aids sufferers.
 
ooh. this is a hugely important topic, so i'm going to revive it. there are actually now about 13 million children orphaned due to AIDS, and that number's expected to double by 2010. this is truly a crisis, and it will be up to my generation to do something about it. i'm hoping to travel to kenya next summer to visit New Life Homes, an orphanage in Kenya, to learn more about the effects of AIDS. anyway, just wanted to bring this topic back.
 
I think that AIDS and cancer will both be cured within our lifetime, but only if we fund researchers to study these diseases. The AIDS pandemic in Africa really is terrible.
 
It doesn't help that representatives of the Pope have been going to Africa and saying that condoms help to cause AIDS, and so people should stop using them. :angry:
I can't believe that people who are supposed to be religious (and therefore, by stereotype, caring) could knowingly help in the death of so many people.
There was a program about this on television the other day.
 
Natalia said:
It doesn't help that representatives of the Pope have been going to Africa and saying that condoms help to cause AIDS, and so people should stop using them. :angry:
I can't believe that people who are supposed to be religious (and therefore, by stereotype, caring) could knowingly help in the death of so many people.
There was a program about this on television the other day.
[post="1076192"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]​
Yes the church is against the use of condoms, i don't remember why but it's stupid (sorry for those who are catholic) because it's mean to prevent aids from being spread. They are also against all the things that prevent woman from getting pregnant, saying that they don't need it, it's God who has to decide if u can or cannot have a baby or something like that.

Well even if it's true imagine the situation of peope who have AIDS and then have a baby :angry: ! It's a really good way for stoping this desease!!!!
 
ashqua said:
Yes the church is against the use of condoms, i don't remember why but it's stupid (sorry for those who are catholic) because it's mean to prevent aids from being spread. They are also against all the things that prevent woman from getting pregnant, saying that they don't need it, it's God who has to decide if u can or cannot have a baby or something like that.

Well even if it's true imagine the situation of peope who have AIDS and then have a baby :angry: ! It's a really good way for stoping this desease!!!!
[post="1076320"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]​
I'm catholic and I totally agree with you. The Church's stance on birth control is not really followed by a lot of Catholics. Most of us just don't think it's that big of a deal, but in this case the dogma is actually hurting people.
 
HIV infections hit record numbers

And it's not just in Africa...

Record number of women with HIV

The Catholic Church's stance on condoms is completely absurd! Some in the Church even argue condoms increase the likelihood of HIV transmission! :angry: I watched a documentary about this and the Bishop of Nigeria (!) said something like this on record. It's sad that so many of the Church funded charities are doing great work in Africa, but so many decline to educate locals about birth control or provide condoms. :angry: :(

Abstinence alone will never work. ABC is a better plan of campaign.
Abstinence + Birth Control + Condoms.

Security for those of us lucky enough to live in rich countries means things to do with law and order. But for those living in poor countries, "security" takes on a whole new meaning altogether. It's about having enough money to buy food security, and selling your body if that's what it takes to feed your family. :( I've read about women on the streets in Africa offering themselves for $5 "with", for $10 "without" (protection). :(
 
ashqua said:
Yes the church is against the use of condoms, i don't remember why but it's stupid (sorry for those who are catholic) because it's mean to prevent aids from being spread. They are also against all the things that prevent woman from getting pregnant, saying that they don't need it, it's God who has to decide if u can or cannot have a baby or something like that.

Well even if it's true imagine the situation of peope who have AIDS and then have a baby :angry: ! It's a really good way for stoping this desease!!!!
[post="1076320"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]​

I believe the church condemns all forms of contraception, so condoms fall under that category. The last thing people living with AIDS need are people telling them the wrong way to go about their way of life.

The statistics for those with AIDS are frightening:
  • According to UNAIDS estimates, there were 37.2 million adults and 2.2 million children living with HIV at the end of 2004
  • During the year 4.9 million new people became infected with the virus.
  • 95% of the total number of people with HIV/AIDS live in the developing world.
  • HIV claims over 8,000 lives every day. In fact 5 people die of AIDS every minute.
Click here for complete statistics.
 
Wow...this topic has sadly been dead for a while. Such an important issue too.

I was looking for such a topic, because I didn't want to start a new one if one already existed.

Anyways, I read this article in Newsweek the other day. While not a cure and dangerous in some regards, the results were rather promising. What does everyone else think?

Circumcision: Cutting the HIV Rate?


Newsweek


Oct. 31, 2005 issue - A landmark study with major implications for the global AIDS epidemic, published this week by French and South African researchers, seems to confirm what scientists have long suspected: that circumcision cuts the risk of HIV infection dramatically, by as much as 60 percent. If similar studies now underway in Kenya and Uganda corroborate the results, circumcision could become a powerful weapon—with condom use and other measures—in the fight against AIDS.

While more than 40 studies since 1989 have found lower HIV rates among circumcised men, this study, led by the French national agency for AIDS research and conducted in the Gauteng region of South Africa, is the first to test circumcision as an active intervention. Its publication, in the journal PLoS Medicine, was controversial: the authors announced their findings at an AIDS conference in Brazil in July, only to have their paper rejected by the British medical journal The Lancet over ethical concerns. (The researchers had not informed trial participants of their HIV status, even if it were positive, because treatment was unavailable at the time and discrimination was common.) Two review panels later OK'd the study for publication in PLoS, whose editors noted that "to not put this paper in the public domain quickly could be considered unethical in its own right," because the upside is that remarkable. A monitoring group even halted the experiment early because the results were so stark. More than 3,000 men were randomly assigned to be circumcised or left intact; only 20 men in the first group became infected, compared with 49 in the second.

News of the experiment arrives as U.S. anti-circumcision groups blossom on the Internet in a kind of phallic culture war, arguing that the practice is genital mutilation performed on unconsenting infants, with no medical benefits and risk of sexual harm. The American Association of Pediatrics last month reaffirmed its carefully hedged 1999 stance on circumcision, which neither endorses nor discourages the practice. And 16 states no longer offer Medicaid reimbursements for circumcisions, deeming it an unnecessary procedure. Despite all that, U.S. circumcision rates have remained relatively constant for 20 years, at nearly 80 percent of newborn boys.

That's compared with a global rate of only 15 percent. Will that number now rise? U.S. and international AIDS organizations are awaiting results from Kenya and Uganda, due in the summer of 2007, before they recommend circumcision to the developing world on a massive scale. Even then, there are practical considerations of cost and training; circumcisions performed with dirty tools by inexperienced health workers could expose men to more infections. And there is the "disinhibition" factor, which may lead newly circumcised men to engage in more risky behavior. "This doesn't replace the usual techniques that we know work, like condom use. That has to be loud and clear," says Dr. Jay Levy, one of the doctors who helped identify HIV in 1983. But the potential of reducing the global AIDS rolls by even a fraction could be measured in hundreds of thousands of lives.
 
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