The thing about AIDS in Africa, is even if they found a cure tomorrow, the healthcare system is so lax that they could not possibly get it to people.
Below is a paper I wrote for my english comp 2 class about how I weiw the situation. It's not the best paper, kind of "campy" in my opinion, but hey-it got me an A!
"Africa Is Dying"
Africa is dying. It has become a land of sick babies and grandparents. There is a generation missing from the population, a generation who have died of AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 10% of the world’s population, it is also home to a staggering 28.9 million people living with HIV/AIDS, that’s 60% of all known cases worldwide (United Nations).
Over the past 20 years the HIV/AIDS epidemic has totally decimated every facet of African life, from economy, to community, to family.
The already poverty stricken countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are buckling under the added pressure of a shrinking workforce. Many companies are absorbing the costs of hiring and training up to four people to do the same job, because one or two will surely die of AIDS. It is hard to believe that in place where hunger is so prevalent, crops would rot in the fields, but they do without any workers to pick them (DATA).
Community and family are also greatly affected by the AIDS epidemic. With so many sick and dying, there are major shortages in healthcare workers, teachers, and community leaders in general. In addition, there is one irreplaceable segment of society, parents. It is estimated that there will be 18 million AIDS orphans by 2010. Many of these orphaned children are sick also, 1,400 newborn babies are infected by childbirth or breastfeeding every day in Africa (DATA).
The global fight against HIV/AIDS has come a long way in the last 20 years. Currently, governments from around the world have banded together and earmarked billions of dollars to help combat the scourge of HIV/AIDS in Africa. These funds will go to much needed programs in education, prevention, and treatment. However, pumping in billions of dollars into countries with collapsed healthcare systems will do nothing to curtail the HIV/AIDS epidemic. One solution to this problem would be to allocate a certain percentage of HIV/AIDS funds to go towards general healthcare recovery.
The healthcare system in most of Africa is appalling. Often there only hospitals in major cities and these are severely under funded. One example of the extreme lack of funds can be seen in the 2006/07 health budget for Kenya, a country with the population of 32 million, which allots only $15 per person (Nguyen). Dirty, dimly lit wards with no clean water or medical supplies are the norm through out much of Africa. All of these factors contribute to the largest problem with the healthcare system in Africa; there are no doctors or nurses. A large number of doctors and nurses are lured away to work in other countries because of the poor wages and working conditions in Africa. In the last five years Kenya has lost almost 4,000 nurses to jobs overseas, and with an average wage of $275 a month, most are happy to go (Nguyen).
Josie Glausiusz, a researcher and World Bank consultant, says that when traveling in Africa, “They give you a syringe and say, carry this with you, and avoid all the health care that you can.”
While researching hundreds of papers on Africa, Glausiusz concluded that the unsanitary conditions found in most of Africa’s healthcare system are major contributing factors to the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus. Glausiusz cites a study done in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which found that 39% percent of the areas HIV-positive infants came from mothers with no infection. The HIV-positive infants had all previously received vaccinations for common childhood illnesses, which lead Glausiusz to conclude that the infants were most likely infected by the re-use of the needles used to vaccinate them.
Using some of the HIV/AIDS relief funds to strengthen Africa’s healthcare system would build the beginning foundation for a strong platform that could effectively fight the AIDS epidemic. If hospitals had workable budgets that could afford such simple but necessary items such as clean water, new syringes, rubber gloves, and dignified wages, many healthcare professionals would opt to stay in their native countries (Rosenburg).
Many AIDS advocates will object to this plan with tight fists, not wanting any of the hard-earned funds funneled to any program that is not directly an AIDS prevention, or treatment program. However, with the current shortage of healthcare workers many of Africa’s countries do not have the resources to test people for HIV/AIDS, let alone treat them. Currently many Africans do not even bother to get tested, because they know that if they test positive for the virus, no treatment will be available to them (Rosenburg).
The HIV/AIDS crisis is one that threatens every aspect of humanity. The world must take on the responsibility of saving those African nations that cannot save themselves. If serious changes are not made in the way the epidemic is dealt with, and the future predictions of many tens of millions of AIDS orphans are allowed to come to fruition, the whole world will suffer. A generation of unloved, unguided, lawless people living on the fringe of society will do great damage. As seen in places like Afghanistan, these kinds of hopeless, poor conditions are where terrorism is born, and the volatile conditions in Africa make for prime breeding grounds (Rosenburg).