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- ROME (Reuters) - AIDS is
becoming a greater threat in rural areas of the developing world than in
the cities, undermining agricultural systems and jeopardizing food security,
the UN's world food body said Thursday.
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- Of the 36.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS, an overwhelming
95 percent live in developing countries, the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) said in a statement posted on its Web page http://www.fao.org.
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- ``Within those countries, AIDS is becoming a greater
threat in rural areas than in the cities,'' the FAO said.
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- ``In absolute numbers, more people living with HIV reside
in rural areas,'' it added.
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- The Rome-based organization said the epidemic was spreading
with alarming speed into the remotest villages, cutting food production
and threatening the very life of rural communities.
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- ``AIDS undermines agricultural systems and affects the
nutritional situation and food security of rural families,'' FAO said.
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- ``As adults fall ill and die, families face declining
productivity as well as loss of knowledge about indigenous farming methods
and loss of assets,'' it added.
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- FAO has estimated that in the 25 most affected African
countries, AIDS has killed 7 million agricultural workers since 1985. It
could kill 16 million more within the next 20 years.
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- Africa accounts for only one tenth of the world's population
but nine out of 10 new cases of HIV infection.
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- More than eight of every 10 AIDS deaths are in Africa,
where the disease has killed 10 times more people than war.
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- Rural communities bear a higher burden of the cost of
HIV/AIDS as many urban dwellers and migrant laborers return to their village
of origin when they fall ill.
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- At the same time, household expenses rise to meet medical
bills and funeral expenses, and while the number of productive family members
declines, the number of dependents grows.
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- ``These realities endanger both short-term and long-term
household food security,'' FAO said.
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- Threat To Women And Girls
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- Biological and social factors make women and girls more
vulnerable to HIV/AIDS than men and boys, FAO said.
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- Studies have shown that HIV infection rates in young
women can be 3-5 times higher than among young men.
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- Some of the traditional mechanisms to ensure women's
access to land in case of widowhood contribute to the spread of AIDS --
such as the custom that obliges a man to marry his brother's widow.
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- ``Studies have shown that a widow who loses access to
her husband's property can be forced into commercial sex as her only means
of subsistence,'' FAO said.
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- Women and girls also face the greatest burden of work
-- given their traditional responsibilities for growing much of the food
and caring for the sick and dying.
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- In many hard-hit communities, girls are being withdrawn
from school to help lighten the family load.
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- ``It is clear that the epidemic is undermining the progress
made in the last 40 years of agricultural and rural development,'' FAO
said.
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- ``This poses enormous challenges to governments, non-governmental
organizations and the international community. The disease is no longer
just a health problem -- it has become a major development issue.''
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