AIDS In Sub-Saharan Africa

The world as a whole should be mortified by what is happening in Sub-Saharan Africa. In places like Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho poverty, crime and systematic corruption are the tinder for the fire that is the HIV epidemic in Africa.

Stephanie Nolen was already known for her work as the Globe and Mail’s Africa correspondent, ranging from the effects of war on women and children, to Stephen Lewis’ fight to end AIDS in Africa, when she published 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa in 2007. 28 is Nolen’s attempt to reflect the 28 million Africans who had HIV in 2007. Nolen gathered the testimonies of 28 individuals including orphans, miners, grandmothers, soldiers, the clergy, and Nelson Mandela. In this book, Nolen seamlessly integrates personal stories of the victims with shocking statistics and engrossing quotes, effortlessly bring a ‘human face’ to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This is a great piece of work demanding both empathy and immediate action.

Africa has a history of facing many challenges, including starvation, poverty, Ebola and AIDS. AIDS, however, has become Africa’s biggest hurdle. Botswana, located in Southern Africa, has been hit the hardest by the AIDS virus with over 23% of its population contracting AIDS. In order to help fix the AIDS epidemic in Botswana, multiple things need to be reviewed, such as understanding how AIDS spread throughout Botswana, where the region currently stands on the AIDS virus, and the three solutions on how to prevent the rise in the spreading of the virus within the area. According to the website Avert, studies have shown that the most effective ways to help stop the spread of AIDS includes testing centers, intervention centers, and the distribution of more protective measures.

HIV is an epidemic that is present worldwide, the disease is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa for the most part. In context, of the estimated thirty-four million cases of HIV in 2008, twenty-two to twenty-three cases were in sub-Saharan Africa. On the contrary, 1.4 million people are infected with HIV in North America. (Sigall K. Bell, MD, 2011, p. 38). Further, the sum of global infections approximately two million are under fifteen of age. Approximately 50,000 cases a year are in the United States due to the lack of prevention, which then leads to overall prevention. Potential causes of the spreading of HIV are non-effective educational messages along with the high-risk sexual behavior. Also, this just calls for increasing chances of acquiring

What is AIDS and how it is spreading throughout the world? Throughout the 20th-21st Century, AIDS has been a top primary concern for many people and how it can spread numerous ways through any physical contact.

A disease is considered infectious if it spreads from one person to another through airborne means such as direct physical contact between people, or vectors such as insects. Infectious diseases are the leading cause of death, accounting for a quarter to a third of the estimated 54 million deaths worldwide (Gannon, 2000). Approximately half of all deaths caused by infectious diseases can be attributed to three diseases; tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS (CDC, 2007). Together these diseases cause over 300 million illnesses and more than 5 million deaths each year.

People all over the world avoid talking about diseases specially sexually transmitted diseases because they think that if people do not speak about it, it will disappear or it does not exist and that is not true. HIV and other disease have been in the world for more than three decades. I like reading books that interest me and Africa is one of many topics I want to learn more about. In the first book I read A story the African Aids Epidemic by John Iliffe the author talks about why the Aids epidemic started and how long did it take to actually name the virus. This book was written based on multiple articles and books that John Iliffe read. The second book is Scrambling for America by Johanna Crane talks about not only the resources that people were able to get but also how the clinic has grown from small to big. This book has changed the way I think about HIV and how society shapes people.

HIV originated in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920, when HIV crossed species from chimpanzees to humans. HIV stands for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, if you are infected with HIV, your body will try to fight the infection with special molecules called “antibodies.” Being HIV-positive is not the same as having AIDS, stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: Acquired means you can get infected with it; Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body’s system that fights diseases; Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease. You don’t just “get” AIDS, you may be infected

The third cause of the spread of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa are the religious factors of the region, which play a key role in the spread of the disease. In 2009, Pope Benedict, during his trip in Africa banned the use of condoms (medwiser, 2017). This directly helped to increase the spread of AIDS, as the Catholics in the region had more of an incentive to have unprotected sex. In 2008, Muslim leaders had shared a similar view with the Pope (medwiser, 2017). The umbrella Somali Ulema Council said it would use Sharia (Islamic) Law, including flogging, to punish those selling or using condoms. According to Sheikh Nur Barud, who is the chairman of the Somali Ulema Council, “ the use of condoms will increase adultery

Sub-Saharan Africa has the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world. In 2013, an estimated 24.7 million people were living with HIV, accounting for 71% of the global total. In the same year, there were an estimated 1.5 million new HIV infections and 1.1 million AIDS-related deaths. The second largest country most impacted by HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa is Lesotho.

There are abounding countries in the world that struggle with the rate of HIV/AIDS. One of these countries being the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although Democratic Republic of Congo is not one of the top ten African countries with HIV/AIDS, they have had a massive spread throughout the years. Even though they have done many things to try to prevent the spread, rates are still high.

The AIDS crisis has been a very controversial issue in the history of South Africa beginning in 1982. During this time South Africa has made a government transition from apartheid to a democracy. Since many national issues needed to be address, the AIDS crisis was pushed aside, leaving a pandemic in the process. Many factors have contributed to the issues including: poverty, social instability, high levels of sexually transmitted infections, the low status of women, sexual violence, migrant labor, limited access to quality medical care, and a history of poor leadership in the response to the pandemic. After three decades of controversy in South Africa dealing with issues involving the government, medicine, and conflict the country is still feeling the after-effect today regarding the largest AIDS pandemic.

People think that HIV in Africa is very high, but the speaker expresses it is different. If we think the whole Africa as a same country, and the situation of every African country is same, it is a critical error. This idea does not have any respect to them. African country has different situations according to regions and countries.

Located on the east coast of Africa, Tanzania experiences high temperatures as well as high humidity year round. Year round, central Tanzania only gets around ten inches of rain. Tanzania is also located in an area called sub-Africa, which is the section of Africa located below the Sahara Desert. With a population around forty-eight million people, Tanzania is in the top fifty poorest countries in the world. Thirty-six percent of the population is below the poverty line and have a yearly income of only 280 US dollars. Tanzania is mainly an agricultural country, but most farmed products are not exported due to lack of food within the country. They harvest rice, potatoes, corn, sugar, and papayas. Unfortunately, Tanzania’s poverty comes

As a developing countries Bangladesh can not meet its all demand by own economic ability so it takes foreign aid for implementing its development purposes. It has got foreign aid for its several development issues like Jamuna and Padma Bridge. Not only structural development is implemented by foreign aid but also several long term policy and projects are done by it. But the effectiveness of foreign aids to the third world developing countries like Bangladesh is a controversial issue. Liberal economists argue that aids both in the form of grants and loans can play vital role to the development of any country, if it is channeled through proper biding and use effectively to the development projects. In contrary of that, aid causes debt entrapment, dependency, domination etc. to the third world country like Bangladesh.