by Amaka
Published on: Feb 16, 2007
Topic:
Type: Opinions

One of the objectives of establishing the African Union (AU) was to hasten development, economic growth and improve living standards of the people.

However, the widespread of HIV/Aids is threatening the aspiration.

But what has been the cause of the continued rapid spread of the scourge and what should Africa do to curb the pandemic impact on the continent’s development?
The scourge of HIV/Aids is ravaging AU member states, threatening their economic progress with collapse.

A 2005 development report shows that despite decent growth rates many African states have achieved, the impact of the deadly health problem is seriously eroding their manpower, the economic base they badly need to overcome poverty.

The pandemic has reduced life expectancy in African States, particularly in Sub-Saharan region. In Tanzania, for instance, life expectancy of the productive manpower has fallen from a peak of 52 years in 1998 to around 48 years today because of the disease that appeared for the first time in the country in 1983.

Had it not been for the deadly virus, the 39 years life expectancy in Botswana today would be 72.

The disease is consequently not only a health problem, but also a serious economic impediment, making it urgent for Africa to come up with a solution.

’’It is depleting disproportionately the productive and skilled segment of the population, thereby raising the dependency ratio,’’ the report says.

The 53-member state AU was formed in July 2002 to among other things hasten improvement of the standard of living of the continent’s 861 million Africans, majority of which live in abject poverty.

Increasingly, HIV/Aids is claiming a large share of national public resources to care for the terminally ill on the continent. Prof. Humphrey Moshi of Economic Research Bureau, University of Dar es Salaam once said that the cost of nursing one AIDS patient was enough to educate nine primary school pupils.

The HIV/Aids statistics in some Sub-Saharan countries are shocking, suggesting speedy action. Between 50 - 80 per cent of patients occupying beds in hospitals of Zimbabwe and Zambia have AIDS-related illnesses.

In South Africa, the infection rate has recently peaked to above 1,500 daily making it a country with greatest number of persons living with AIDS worldwide.

Between one in seven and one in nine live with HIV, just as is the case in Malawi and Mozambique.

Indeed the situation is getting out of hands!
In response to the challenge, some measures have been taken.

The Southern Africa Capacity Initiative (SACI) project was initiated to assist the most affected countries with HIV/Aids deal with erosion capacity caused by the pandemic.

A key focus of the initiative has been furthering of researches on how HIV/Aids affects both the supply of and demand for government services, and come up with comprehensive preventive solutions.

The project is currently being implemented in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

African state’s HIV infection rates continue to rise in some countries. In other countries, the infection rates are above 20 per cent among adult, while others have infection rates in excess of 30 percent.

It is feared that the number of African countries with infection rate exceeding 30 per cent might increase, a situation, which would greatly destabilize the already fragile continent’s economic growth.

This makes the SACI Project and other preventive measures being taken by Africa countries important.

The UNAIDS/WHO update-2002 report mentioned countries whose infection rates exceed 30 per cent as Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

In Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe it is estimated that more than one person in five, between the ages of 15 and 19 are living with HIV virus. A study case in Zimbabwe, one of the hardest hit African countries illustrates the enormity of the problem.

At one time blood samples of expectant mothers in 25 surveillance sites in 1997 tested anonymously showed that HIV prevalence remained below 10 per cent in two sites only. In the remaining 23, a fifth and a half of all pregnant women tested were HIV positive!

In Tanzania the scourge’s prevalence, according to blood donors during the period between 1990 and 2000 almost doubled to 13.3 per cent from 7.2 per cent a couple of years previously.

The question many people ask is that despite awareness levels reaching 98 percent in some African states, why has the virus continued to spread with alarming rates?

A recent study ’’Social aspect of HIV/Aids and health’’by W.W. Kellogg Foundation has attempted to provide an answer for the above question.

According to the study, the practices of drying up women genitals aiming to provide pleasure to men during sexual intercourse commonly practised in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and many other African states was to greater extent responsible for escalating HIV/Aids infections in Sub-Saharan countries.

The practice is in addition to the usually known factors such as unsafe male and female circumcision; marriage and death rites; shifting norms which allow for high number of sexual partners; and resistance to condom uses.

The virus attacks the young and productive Africa population, who make nearly 70 percent of the continent’s estimated 861 million people.

As a result, the sick labour force, combined with weather extremes have, exacerbated the problem of agricultural productivity, condemning greater part of Africa to food shortage.

’’Fundamentally, what makes the dimensions of the HIV/Aids crisis so devastating for this region is the way it is intersecting with the challenges of poverty, food security and limited institutional capacity to deliver essential public services, rendering the development challenge the continent faces even more arduous,’’ Brown, the UNDP administrator said.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic does not only weaken the health and educational development the continent’s poor need to fight poverty, but also robs the African nations of the skilled manpower necessary for the task.

The disease is fueling poverty as family members, particularly women are forced to make hard choices between allocation of their time for income production, meeting household needs, child-care on one hand, and care for their beloved HIV/Aids sick people, on the other. African leaders are scared.

’’We are threatened with extinction. People are dying in chillingly high numbers. It is a crisis of the first magnitude,’’ says Botswana’s President, Festus Mogae at the 2001 UN General Assembly.

In the absence of a known cure, AU member states have focused attention on behavioral change to reverse the situation.

Effective communication aiming at creating awareness in the fight against the virus has become common now than before.

Intervention at workplace, promotion of voluntary counseling and testing is now opted for to bring the HIV/Aids problem under control.

However, Africa needs to do more. People need more sensitization on the HIV scourge to enable them make safer sexual decisions.

The medication to reduce mother-to-child transmission needs to be expanded to reach as many expectant women as possible, particularly those in the rural areas.

Supply of drugs to control opportunistic infections associated with AIDS and provision of ARVs to the sick people need to be widened.

But challenges still remain. Many African governments remained mute on difficulty ethical and moral issues surround HIV/Aids related taboos including sexuality and death, stigma, shame, guilty and discrimination of HIV infected people.

In order to succeed in fighting HIV and AIDS, African states must come up clearly to fight the pandemic with the determination to overcome the scourge.

Deliberate efforts are needed to educate Africans about the importance of having a balance between moral dogma and life efficacy as far as the use of condoms and other preventive measures are concerned, if the continent’s efforts were to make any difference.

African states collectively and or individually need to further expand the scope of ARVs to as many poor people as possible with view to clear existing beliefs among African communities that HIV/Aids was like death sentences to the poor and just life sentences to the rich Africans who easily accessed ARVs drugs.

For effective and quick turnaround of the HIV impacts on the Africa’s economies and development, a number of actions must be taken.

African countries should integrate their anti-HIV/Aids programmes in their development policies and fund them with considerable transparency.

In deed the enormity of the problem calls for holistic and practical implementation of commitments individual African as well as their nations needs to make in relation to the HIV/Aids scourge.

There ought to be policies committing individual member states to caring for AIDS orphans. Africa should intervene by enhancing sexual behavioral change awareness at local community levels.

The awareness education campaigns should be on both negative behavioral practices and socio-cultural factors that fuel infections.

The education needs to focus on effects of the habit to dry up women genitals before and during sexual intercourse; unsafe female circumcision; inheritance of widows; and resistance to condom use by some African communities in relation to their religious beliefs.

As the 2004 report for World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization suggested, Africa should address HIV/AIDS problem on preventive basis by focusing on the education services to avert the collapse of the already fragile continent’s educational systems.

Once these measures were undertaken and sustained, there is no doubt whatsoever that, Africa’s efforts to fight HIV/Aids and her aspirations to improve people’s living standards could be realized.



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