- An estimated three million people will have died of AIDS
in 2000, the highest annual figure yet recorded. 500,000 of these were
children. Although 2.4 million of the total deaths were in sub-Saharan
Africa, the latest UNAIDS and World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics
also show serious increases in the number of HIV infections in countries
that are part of the former Soviet Union, as well as in South and South-East
Asia. The UNAIDS/WHO report was timed to appear for World AIDS day, December
1.
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- AIDS has now killed a total of 22 million people, making
it the deadliest epidemic in the history of mankind and overtaking the
total of 20 million killed by Spanish Flu in 1918. The series of statistics
in the UNAIDS/WHO report reveals the horrifying scale and spread of the
disease. However, the report is just as staggering in spelling out the
totally ineffective global response to this pandemic. In line with the
attitude of the major Western governments, the report calls only for prevention
programmes in sub-Saharan Africa"education and provision of condoms"and
basic care and support for those infected. There will be no attempt to
deal with the widespread poverty, collapsing healthcare systems, or to
provide the anti-retroviral drug treatment available in the West. The derisory
sum of $3 billion a year being asked for by the UN will condemn millions
of people to die.
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- Total world figures for HIV infection were 36.1 million,
of which 1.4 million are children. 25.3 million of these were in sub-Saharan
Africa.
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- In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc as a whole,
there were at least 700,000 cases of HIV infection, up from just 420,000
cases last year. In the Russian federation, 50,000 new infections were
reported in the first nine months of this year compared to 29,000 registered
in the previous 12 years. This increase is largely due to intravenous drug
use and is likely to be a serious underestimation as many cases are unreported.
The Russian Ministry of Health released a report estimating that about
14 million Russians, about 10 percent of the population, will be infected
by 2005. "What we had predicted and feared is now happening, and that's
an explosion of HIV, said Peter Piot, UNAIDS director, pointing to the
lack of concern shown by governments in the region.
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- South and South-East Asia now has 5.8 million people
with HIV. Although this is only a small proportion of the region's population,
figures are expected to rapidly increase, especially in China, Vietnam
and Cambodia. Vietnam has had 2,371 deaths from AIDS, but it is predicted
that this will rise to 46,000 by 2005"with 200,000 HIV infected. China
is predicted to have 10 million HIV cases by 2010, with HIV cases growing
at 30 percent each year.
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- A Reuters report from India states that the country now
has 3.7 million people who are HIV infected, the largest number in the
world after South Africa. A health ministry spokesman stated that effective
antiretroviral treatment was too expensive for the country's health budget.
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- The UNAIDS/WHO report shows a slight fall in new HIV
infections in sub-Saharan Africa, from 4 million in 1999 to 3.8 million
in 2000. This is hardly encouraging news, given the fact that the figures
are statistical estimates with large margins of error. It probably means
that the epidemic has gone on for so long that it has already affected
a high proportion of people in the sexually active population. The other
possible explanation put forward by the UN"that AIDS prevention programmes
are beginning to take effect in some African countries"do not seem
credible when the dire situation in countries the UN claims to represent
"success stories"like Uganda and Zambia"is seriously examined.
Experts fear that the epidemic could spread in highly populated Nigeria,
where HIV rates are now about 5 percent of the population, increasing to
the much higher levels now found in Southern Africa.
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- Another serious aspect of the UNAIDS/WHO statistics is
the recent increases in HIV infection in the West. During 2000 it is estimated
that 30,000 people in Western Europe and 45,000 in the US have been infected
with HIV. This increase on the rates throughout the 1990s suggests that
although the totals are still low compared to Africa, basic education on
the danger of AIDS/HIV is lacking.
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- AIDS in Africa
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- Media reports over the last few days have provided heart-rending
illustrations of the effect of the disease in Africa. A British Channel
4 TV documentary, AIDS The Global Killer, showed the situation in Livingstone,
Zambia. On the intersection of main trunk roads the high HIV infection
is attributed to a large number of sex workers. A local school was shown
where the head teacher had lost so many teachers and pupils he is now allowing
sex education classes in spite of opposition from the Catholic Church.
Groups of orphaned children are shown sleeping rough; a mother dying from
AIDS had been forced to send her child to be looked after by a charity.
A highly educated civil servant took the brave decision to openly admit
he had AIDS but has since been shunned by his friends. Despite his relative
affluence he cannot afford the price of basic antibiotics to treat his
infections.
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- BBC Radio World Service interviewed people dying with
AIDS in Kenya, where 200,000 have died in the last year. At an orphanage,
the reporter was shown the nearby graveyard of children who had recently
died. In Harare, Zimbabwe, the local cemetery is now full because of AIDS-related
deaths, and an appeal is being made for families to break with traditional
custom and accept cremation.
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- Reports in Village Voice reveal the situation facing
a group of AIDS patients at Gulu, Uganda. The vast majority of them had
gone at least five days without food in the last year, demonstrating the
effects of poverty on the disease. A partner in an advertising and media
firm in Uganda was interviewed, as one of the 852 people out of 930,000
infected with HIV who has been able to afford antiretroviral drugs. His
firm is now making less money, so he can no longer afford the $6,250 needed
for a year's treatment.
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- The economic impact of AIDS in Africa is referred to
by the UNAIDS/WHO report. Studies show the devastating impact that the
disease is likely to have on the economy of Southern Africa, which contributes
40 percent of the region's economy. It is predicted that the country's
Gross Domestic Product will be 17 percent lower than it would have been
in the absence of AIDS, wiping $22 billion off the economy. In Botswana,
with a relatively wealthy economy due to income from diamond mining, it
is estimated that health spending will more than treble over the next 10
years.
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- Western powers largely ignore global catastrophe
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- The UNAIDS campaign theme for World AIDS day this year
reflects the total refusal of Western governments to seriously address
this global catastrophe. "Men make a difference, targets the individual
responsibility of men for the growth of the infection"along the lines
of moralising Victorian philanthropy. "Harmful cultural beliefs about
masculinity"i.e. men forcing women to have sex and refusing to care
for infected family members and orphans"is seen as the key problem.
In contrast, the report hardly addresses the basic problems facing the
majority of people in Africa"the provision of clean drinking water
and nutritious food, to say nothing of healthcare and education systems
which have rapidly declined under the IMF and World Bank privatisation
programmes of the last period.
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- World AIDS day also gave US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright the occasion to declare, "We are not winning the war against
AIDS and call for "a global effort with gutsy leadership, backed by
donors and caring people everywhere. This was said in the context of a
US political leadership that has donated a mere $1 billion to combat HIV/AIDS
to 75 countries over the last 10 years"an average of $100 million
a year. Even this paltry sum is higher than that donated by any other Western
nation. The US Congress has voted a global aid budget of $460 million for
2001, not only for HIV/AIDS but also for all infectious diseases. The figures
contrast with an annual US defence budget of $310 billion. French President
Jacques Chirac said that in the European Union, whose presidency is currently
held by France, "we are faced, morally and politically, with a situation
of failing to assist people at risk, but he merely called for yet another
UN conference to bring together representatives of developing countries,
pharmaceutical companies and NGOs.
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- A response that is perhaps even more cynical was given
by the World Bank. With its headquarters fronted by a huge 32-foot high
red ribbon, a spokeswoman boasted of the $500 million that the Bank's board
had approved in September for HIV/AIDS work in sub-Saharan Africa. The
bank is providing "soft loans"with lower than usual repayment
terms"for 25 African countries, most of which already have a huge
debt burden.
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- Several campaign groups are now focusing on the issue
of anti-HIV drugs. At the Durban International AIDS Conference last July,
drug companies promised to cut their prices by as much as 80 percent to
African countries. The cut has failed to materialise. So far only Senegal
has negotiated a price-cut on AIDS drugs. The charity Doctors Without Borders
says that the combination of three drugs at present on sale in the US for
$42.60 a day ($15,500 a year) could be sold to poor countries at $2.14
a day ($780 a year) and still make a profit.
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- In South Africa, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
has won considerable support against the ANC government, which is refusing
to provide drugs except for health workers infected with HIV and for those
who can afford them privately (the latter group includes politicians who
have their own insurance scheme). TAC's deputy chairman, Mark Heywood,
told the world media that at present only 10,000 of the four million infected
with HIV in South Africa had access to anti-retroviral drugs, and that
a significant price reduction would bring access to 300,000 within two
years.
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- However important the access to drug treatment is, as
the UNAIDS/WHO report points out: "in countries that are worst affected
by the epidemic, rising sickness and death often take place against a background
of deteriorating public services, poor employment prospects and endemic
poverty. Combination drug treatments available in the West, which are not
a cure but have been shown to halt the development of full-blown AIDS,
can only be administered within an adequate health service. The drugs produce
serious side effects and require constant care and supervision of patients.
They can only be part of the solution to an enormous social crisis that
must be tackled as a global emergency. Western politicians have so far
completely rejected any kind of coordinated intervention that would mean
spending hundreds of billions of dollars to halt the impact of this deadly
disease.
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