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Intensifying Action Against HIV/AIDS in Africa Secretary of State Teresa Pickering 7 February 2003 1 I. Problem Twenty years ago, the subject of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which has been found to be the cause of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), would not have been the topic of a major and serious worldwide catastrophe. Twenty years ago, people were not phased by the effects that would be caused by this ever so populating disease, and no one would have ever realized that this disease would not be curable or helped without expensive medicine. Like a simple exponential growth equation, the AIDS virus has increased victim numbers by about forty million all over the world. AIDS has also shown that it is not discriminating; it has infected all races and all heritages. The AIDS crisis extends far beyond its death toll, because more than seventy percent of the thirty-six million people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year alone, the disease killed 1.5 million people in Africa. One third of these victims are between the ages of ten and twenty-four. The disease has been described as a development crisis; it is profoundly disrupting the economic and social bases of families and entire nations at a rate of infection at 16,000 per day. Without immediate action, AIDS will surpass the effect of the Black Plague that killed forty million people in the late fourteenth century. It is estimated that only ten percent of the death that this disease will cause has been seen. There are no known cures or affordable vaccines to prevent AIDS; the only option is for a program to prevent further spread of the epidemic, minimize its impact, and provide care and nurture for those affected. The truth is, however, that not all nations have the capability or resources of preventing such catastrophes from happening; interventions must be placed in order 2 for the country of Africa to have this problem diminished. They cannot to do this alone. AIDS is at war with Africa, and in any war, support is needed from allies. Without much needed assistance, Africa may lose this war against not only its people, but also its economy, which could lead to political downfall. II. Background Lessons from history make the problem of the AIDS epidemic more comprehensive. People of different sectors of the world have already relayed to experiences of past epidemics. The rise of the Black Plague, smallpox, cholera, typhoid or typhus, and influenza among a few others, has taught the world of the great threat of infectious diseases. Although these diseases are known to occur, it still remains alarming when that initial threat begins to rise and rise until opportunities to fight against the disease becomes limited. AIDS has reached that point where if immediate action is not administered then chances of stopping the spreading infection will become extinct as will many lives along the road too. One of the first epidemics of time, the bubonic plague which was also paraphrased as the Black Death, began in 1346. Wiping out more than one-third of the total population in Europe, the Black Death caused blotches or boils on the body that were spread from the bite of a parasitic flea living on the black rat. While the Black Death was the first of these types of catastropic epidemics, it was not the last. Cholera was a world wide epidemic that infected large parts of the world over seven different periods of time. Cholera is transmitted through infected water and manifests itself as an 3 acute infection of the gastrointestinal tract. With specific reference to the cholera epidemic, one author writes: Whenever cholera threatened European countries, it quickened social apprehensions. Wherever it appeared, it tested the efficiency and resilience of local administrative structures. It exposed relentlessly political, social, and moral shortcomings. It prompted rumors, suspicions, and, at times, violent social conflicts. There is no question that an epidemic in these proportions would disrupt the economic and social aspects of a nation, but without a doubt the political economy of the nation would be disrupted. The AIDS crisis is at the point where the disease is destroying any hope for the country of Africa to develop into a prospering state. The origin of AIDS in Africa remains unknown. In one theory it is believed that the disease originated in Haiti and was transported to Africa in the mid 1960s when a large number of Haitians immigrated to Zaire.
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