What I Think We Should Do to Combat AIDS

The best possible solution, in my opinion, would be to combine of all of the past solutions from my previous post; government funding only if they recognized the magnitude of AIDS and made it their number one priority with the government funding labs trying to find a cure and educating prevention and treatment. There is no reason it should not be; how does the government expect to grow if their workforce is nearly obsolete? These African countries seem to be more worried about war, guns, education and rebuilding their towns and cities. If a government is worried about purchasing weapons who do they expect to fight for them when their population is dying or caring for their family members while they sit in their air-conditioned suites feasting on food and drinking ice cold beverages? We need another world power to help these African countries set their priorities straight and set up a financial plan to fund the treatment and prevention of AIDS we could see some serious progress. America is already seen as the "big brother" in the world, so we might as well act the part and help out these struggling nations. A cure to AIDS is not a sure shot thing, but we should give it a chance. The amount of lives we are putting at risk for not helping is huge. Helping is the best thing we can do and we must make sure we leave no stone unturned.

What Has Been Done in the Past to Combat AIDS

There are three possible solutions to AIDS that would be most effective in my opinion. They are educating the population on AIDS prevention, government funding and other world leaders pooling their resources together to combat the disease—through medications, treatments, and so on—and to fund private medical laboratories to work around the clock to find a vaccine. It is no secret that there are laboratories around the world working together to try and find a cure to the disease, but in many cases, the funding is just not there. The majority of governments—especially in Africa—do not seem to have their priorities straight about funding money. They spend most of their funds on construction and education. This is not a bad thing by any means, but who is going to build on these construction sites or go to these schools if they are all bed-written because of AIDS. Just telling these governments will not do much because not everyone follows what they are told. We have all seen this with the DARE program and how people we know have still tried drugs or smoke cigarettes. To have an effective solution to the problem, people will have to get their priorities straight and spend their money correctly.

How AIDS Effects Africa as a Nation

Businesses are struggling to stay in business due to the AIDS epidemic because they are having trouble maintaining a steady flow of workers. For example, according to the statistics is stated previously, in Swaziland 342,606 people are infected with AIDS; that’s one-fourth of their people that are not working and if you take into consideration at least one family member caring for the sick person, half of their population is out of work. This is crippling to not only the business itself, but the country’s economic growth as a whole. If you look at it by ways of percentages, their unemployment rate is 50%. Our country is struggling with 9% unemployment; it is no wonder they are still stuck as 3rd world nations with an unemployment rate of 50%.

Farmers who are affected by the virus can not continue to grow and harvest their crops which puts their town or village at risk of not being able to eat everyday. As I said in my previous post, AIDS has a very destructive attitude; it is trying to bring everyone down by any means necessary. When it affects a farmer it cuts off the food supply to a whole town or village, making the deaths from starvation and malnutrition rise as well.

How Many People Are Affected By AIDS in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa contains about 10% of the world's population and in 2001 it accounted for over two-thirds of the 40 million people living with AIDS. So that is about 26,666,666 people living with AIDS. The smallest percentage of people infected with HIV/AIDS in African countries other than Somalia and Senegal is 10% in Zimbabwe. That is 1 out of every 10 adults is infected with HIV/AIDS. The country where HIV/AIDS is most prevalent is Swaziland with a percentage of 25.9%. That is 1 out of every 4 people with HIV/AIDS--a quarter of their population. To put this into numbers, Swaziland has 1,370,424 people which makes 342,606 people infected with AIDS. Theoretically, in a family of four, one person is infected.

Doctors are very rare in Africa, so it usually falls to a family member to take care of a person who is infected. So the disease does not just immediately affect one person; it seems to have the attitude of "I am going to take down as many people as possible even if I can not enter their body". So if there are 26,666,666 people living with AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, it directly affects around 53,333,333 people.

What Exactly is HIV/AIDS? How Has it Affected the People of Africa.

AIDS is a disease that results in the destruction of the immune system by a retrovirus. AIDS is the final stage of the infection and can result in death of the infected carrier.AIDS is a result of a retrovirus infecting a host. Human immune deficiency virus is what is best known for infecting humans.

Everyone knows HIV/AIDS is bad; many of us do not know how bad it actually is. The massive effect it has on people on a global scale is daunting. It may not be a surprise that the majority of people who are infected with this disease live in Africa, but the exact amount of how many people who do have it in Africa compared to the rest of the world is insane. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for over two-thirds of the 40 million people living with HIV; had 68% of incident HIV infections and 77% of AIDS deaths; and accounted for more than 90% of AIDS orphans and children infected with HIV. Those numbers alone are absolutely staggering. To try to picture all of the people infected combined with the amount of dead in one place is unfathomable. The amount of people that would be standing shoulder to shoulder would spread for miles.

This disease has brought Sub-Saharan Africa to a complete standstill. Economic growth has halted, education is nonexistent, and healthcare is completely absent because there are not enough healthy people to take command of these stations of society and bring Africa to a healthy and prosperous civilization. This is why HIV/AIDS is such a huge problem, it is holding so many back from living successful lives, hindering economic advancement, and taking lives of those who deserve a fair chance at life.

Africare's Work Against HIV/AIDS

Sub-Saharan Africa presents a large health risk of HIV/AIDS and has the smallest amount of resources to combat it globally. HIV/AIDS is one of the most serious health risks these Africans face, but it most certainly is not the only one. Some of the statistics are horrifying: 1 out of every 5 children dies before their fifth birthday; Every year 1 million people die of malaria—90% of these deaths come from people in Sub-Saharan Africa; Africans represent 64% of the world’s population of people living with AIDS—around 25.4 million; Life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa is 46 years old versus 77 in the United States; In many Sub-Saharan African countries, there is one doctor for every 10,000 to 25,000 people.


Africare’s initial project was to assist in understaffed and ill-equipped rural health clinics in Niger. Since their initial project, Africare ha spread has started numerous programs to help fight malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and childhood health, nutrition, and basic medical care.


Africare’s contribution to HIV/AIDS efforts in Africa has been to strengthen community and government capacities; and to provide HIV-related health services using an evidence-based management approach. Their goal is to prevent the spread and reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS, and other diseases. With donations from various sources, Africare works with partners or organizations locally and internationally, to strengthen the ability of the government and communities to implement their own responses to these problems.
Africare works to:
■ Strengthen HIV prevention education and community mobilization
■ Increase uptake and availability of Counseling and testing services for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections
■ Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT)
■ Improve quality of and access to care of and treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS, including antiretroviral therapy
■ Promote quality improvement and strengthen healthcare systems
■ Address the interaction of TB and HIV
■ Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of opportunistic infections
■ Provision of palliative and home-based care services
■ Infection prevention with HIV positives
■ Expansion of family planning and reproductive health services
■ Protection and support of orphans and vulnerable children, and their caregivers
■ Prevention, control and treatment of Malaria
----http://www.africare.org/our-work/what-we-do/health/HIV_AIDS.php

Africare's Work on Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

Africa does not have a shortage of water; the problem is they can not use the water they have. African communities lack the money to build wells, pumps, canals, and so on. Sub-Saharan countries only provide about 26% coverage. Also, 10 Sub-Saharan African counties are listed amongst the top 12 worst countries that supply sanitation to their civilians by the World Health Organization.
Diseases are rampant in these parts of Africa and are primarily caused by the unsafe drinking water. This is widely seen as Africa’s biggest health threat because it causes 80% of sicknesses and results in 5,000 childhood deaths. That’s about 208 children an hour and about 3 children a minute. The lack of clean water, bathrooms, is much more important than the need of education, political development and so on because without the basic necessities to survive, these other needs are irrelevant. If families and children die at such a rapid rate, there will be nobody to educate or run for political office.
Africare has constructed hand dug wells, dams, and began large scale river-based irrigation schemes since its creation. This was one of the first problems Africare tackled and have been doing a great job since. Because of Africare’s help with creating clean water sources, it has become an entry point for village and government demand.
Africare has also educated Africans on how to use these wells and clean water sources to help promote self hygiene as well as proper disposal of feces. This has reduced the amount of water-born diseases and diarrhea. Setting up clean water sources near homes has eliminated the need for women and girls to travel miles to collect clean water for their family. Clean restroom facilities in schools has increased attendance rate which will hopefully result in more successful and educated students rising from these schools and maybe one day making many of these African countries become world-powers.