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.