Posted on 12/01/2005 9:13:58 AM PST by BeAllYouCanBe
Rage, remorse, but some hope in Africa on AIDS Day By Andrew Quinn
Rage and remorse marked World AIDS Day in Africa on Thursday as the continent worst hit by the global crisis remembered millions of deaths in a pandemic that even new drug treatments are doing little to slow.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, President Olusegun Obasanjo went for a morning jog with HIV patients while in the tiny kingdom of Lesotho officials launched the world's first door-to-door national HIV testing campaign.
But Swaziland, which has one of the highest adult HIV infection rates in the world at some 40 percent, scrapped World AIDS Day events entirely while South Africa's health minister repeated her much criticized prescription of garlic and beetroot as an AIDS treatment.
Across Africa, AIDS patients blasted political leaders for failing to come to grips with the disease and the international community for doing too little to help.
"Money that has been earmarked for HIV/AIDS has gone into everything else but AIDS," fumed Meris Kafusi, a 64-year-old AIDS patient in Tanzania who only recently began receiving life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.
"Organizations that say they are dealing with AIDS are always in seminars or workshops. They should be buying food for widows and orphans ... but instead of that, you find them earning daily allowances of $50 for sitting in a room discussing us. Is this fair?"
Sub-Saharan Africa remains ground zero for worldwide HIV/AIDS deaths as well as for new infections -- cutting life expectancy in many countries, leaving millions of children orphaned and reducing agricultural output in hungry regions.
The latest U.N. estimates say 26 million of the 40 million people infected with HIV worldwide live in Africa, and that Africa saw about 3.2 million of the almost 5 million new infections recorded in 2005.
Jack Yong Kim, the director of the HIV/AIDS department at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Lesotho for AIDS Day, said Africa's pain was due in part to lack of proper planning.
"Current prevention, treatment and care efforts are too episodic, ad hoc, and lack the intensity, pace and rhythm needed to make an impact," he said in a statement.
Swaziland's King Mswati, who has angered activists by choosing a 13th wife despite the ravages of AIDS in his country, opted to make no impact at all -- canceling World AIDS Day events to concentrate on other royal duties
FEWER BABIES BURIED
The introduction of ARVs, the only treatment proven to slow the progress of AIDS, is beginning to have an impact in Africa although officials say the drugs are only reaching 10 percent of the African patients who need them.
In South Africa, which with some 5 million HIV infections has the highest single caseload in the world, ARVs were credited with cutting the number of deaths of HIV-positive babies at one Johannesburg orphanage to just eight in 2005 from 51 in 2002.
But South Africa's roll-out of ARVs, which activists say is hobbled by government wariness over the drugs, has not stopped new infections, particularly among young women, and AIDS mortality continues to rise.
Health Minister Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang, dubbed "Dr. No" for her reluctance to support ARV drugs, added fuel to the fire by using an AIDS Day event to push home-grown remedies.
"We are therefore encouraging people to eat healthy and balanced diets with a lot of vegetables like carrot, spinach and beetroot," she told a Durban audience. "Make sure that you eat garlic because of its antibacterial and anti-fungal properties."
South Africa's confusion over AIDS is having deadly consequences. A projection by the research group Markinor said more South Africans were displaying high-risk sexual behavior and forecast cumulative AIDS deaths could hit 9 million by 2021.
Some countries, notably Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe, appear to be bringing infection rates down -- thanks in part to condom campaigns. But others have problems getting the message across, particularly in rural areas where language difficulties and low media access leave people vulnerable.
"It is like shouting or preaching to a deaf person," said Cosmas Adow, an AIDS educator in Isiolo in northern Kenya.
Along with the call for quicker and cheaper access to ARVs, many Africans urged a sense of personal responsibility as new infections continue -- often with women paying the price.
At a Tanzanian government AIDS Day function, a dreadlocked group of local rap artists had a stark message: "You wanted the hot tea, why do you complain when you get burned?"
(Additional reporting by Helen Nyambura in Dar Es Salaam, Brian Mohammed in Mbabane, Guled Mohamed in Nairobi, Noor Ali in Isiolo, Ntsau Lekheto in Maseru, Tume Ahemba in Lagos and Estelle Shirbon in Abuja)
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Boy have they gone downhill... I guess they truly got what they were asking for.
"We are therefore encouraging people to eat healthy and balanced diets with a lot of vegetables like carrot, spinach and beetroot," she told a Durban audience. "Make sure that you eat garlic because of its antibacterial and anti-fungal properties."
Yes, that's right. And mustard plaster applied to the chest is the way to treat pneumonia.
I almost don't know what to say about this. South Africa is in the grips of a heterosexual AIDS crisis because of ignorance, while in places like the US heterosexual AIDS among non-drug users is almost insignificant.
They need modern western medicine, their "Health Minister" gives them witch-doctor remedies. And the left will ALWAYS find some way to blame the problem on the USA as long as Bush is in the White House.
Virtually every country in Africa is in a tailspin towards catastrophy on a biblical proportion, due to the inept, corrupt leadership of those countries.
Slavery flourishes in the Sudan. When Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, it was known as the Breadbasket of Africa. Now it's a starving, ZANU-run dictatorship where the powers that be are demolishing the homes of poor people.
Africa has to come into the 21st century, and I do not think at this point they are capable of that challenge on their own. I don't think the US can afford to make that happen, and I have no faith that the European socialists or the Arabists will provide anything more than words.
But the Chinese will.
"South Africa's health minister repeated her much criticized prescription of garlic and beetroot as an AIDS treatment. "
Having this on your breath could definitely cut your odds of getting aids one way.
As always. That money could've bought a fleet of F-22 Raptors. .....or three new Seawolf attack subs. There are over 10 billion ways that money could've been better spent.
I remember last year Zambawe refused American grain because it contained genetically modified corn. Ignorance is a hard problem to cure -- perhaps harder than AIDS. I would suspect that poor diets do contribute to much of the problems in Africa AIDS being the only one that the MSM likes to cover.
I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!!!... /s
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