Glaxosmithkline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Aids in Africa

In South Africa, AIDS is one of the top causes of death. South Africa has the biggest AIDS/HIV epidemic in the world because of violence against women, poverty, and lack of education. Given this, “Africans account for nearly 70% of those who live with HIV and are dying of AIDS” (Morgenstern, Dr. Michael).

Nearly three decades ago, there was an increase in deaths of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Developing countries have experienced the greatest HIV/AIDS morbidity and mortality, with the highest prevalence rates recorded in young adults in sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa over three million people are killed by this disease (Macfarlene3). After this epidemic spreaded in Africa and killed people it branched out to other countries in the world.

There are an immense amount of problems in Africa caused by the AIDS disease. Healthcare providers are available and located all over Africa. Even though they are available, they have only “enough medicine for long-term survival available for 30,000 Africans” (Copson, 3).

In The Invisible Cure, Helen Epstein talks about why HIV/AIDS rate is so high in Africa compared to the rest of the world. Through the book, she gives us an account of the disease and the struggles that many health experts and ordinary Africans went through to understand this disease, and how different African countries approached the same problem differently. Through this paper, I will first address the different ways Uganda and Southern African countries, South Africa and Botswana in particular, dealt with this epidemic, and then explain how we can use what we have learned from these African countries to control outbreaks of communicable disease elsewhere around the world.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS is a pandemic problem affecting global health. At the end of 2015, 36.7 million people were living with HIV/AIDS globally. The rate of incidence is more prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa with almost 1 in every 24 adults living with HIV/AIDS. In the united states, HIV/AIDS is a diversified health problem affecting all sexes, ages and races and involving the transmission of multiple risk behavior. However, with the introduction of various prevention programs and antiretroviral drugs, the incidence of HIV/AIDS has reduced.

When the HIV virus was identified in the 1980’s, many companies began to search for an antiviral drug but Burroughs Wellcome led the research effort. There were three drugs being tested by other companies as well including, AZT by Burroughs Wellcome, DDI by Bristol Myers and DDC by Hoffman-LaRoche. These drugs inhibit reproduction of HIV and slow the damage it causes.

In the sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of the population suffers from HIV leading to AIDS. The culprits responsible for this epidemic include the lack of knowledge about the disease, disuse of condoms due to religious practices and the overall poor hygiene. If left untreated, the rampant surge of AIDS can terrribly impact the cost of their healthcare, the African economy and the welfare of the people. This implications justify immediately finding remedies to what ails the sub-Saharan population.

If you look at how everything has developed since AIDS was first regarded as s major threat to public health in the beginning of the 1980’s it could be said that a lot of progress has been made. Not in a way where infected individuals around the world get the treatment they need or the developing countries get completely the support necessary, but today the world is closer to that goal than years before. This is important to outline because people tend to forget the progress been made, as they are only searching for a certain ending or result. The final solution to the dilemma between distribution of drugs to all people in need and the costly and continuous research required to find a cure, is not in reach [3].

Increments of HIV and AIDS among populaces of various landmasses, world areas and nations create in various routes and at various levels. The contamination rates in exceptionally created nations, for example, Europe, Japan, Australia, and in Islamic nations are low, followed in a moment push by North and Latin America. The circumstance in sub-Saharan Africa is more awful. 1.1% of the total populace are contaminated. The rate in North Africa and in Europe comes to 0.3%, however in sub-Saharan Africa to 7.4%. Albeit just 13% of the world's aggregate populace lives in sub-Saharan Africa, 65% surprisingly overall tainted by HIV and 75% of passings brought on by AIDS can be found there. In the year 2003 37% of the populace in Botswana was tainted,

In 2011 there were an estimated 23.5 million people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. 1 This rate has increased since 2009, when an estimated 22.5 million people were existing with Aids, as well as 2.3 million children. 2 In 2012, more than 1.1-million individuals were believed to have dies from AIDS-related

In 2014, 1.2 million people died from HIV and its related causes. In the same year, about 36.9 million people were living with HIV. Among these, 2 million were newly infected in 2014. The rate of infection has reduced by 35% between the years of 2000 and 2015. Between the same years, mortality due to HIV fell by 24%. The area with the most HIV/AIDS victims is Sub-Saharan Africa. In this region, 25.8 million people were living with HIV in 2014. The region also has 70% of the newly infected victims in the world. It is very unfortunate that more than 50% of people with HIV know that they have it. HIV testing efforts have improved with 150 million in 129 low and middle income counties getting tested. It was reported in 2015 that 15.8 million people were receiving antiretroviral therapy (World Health Organization,

In the past four decades, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been discovered, developed into an international epidemic, and

From study of United Nations, there were 40 million people in the world living with infection of HIV. Sadly, seventy percent, or 28 million of them lived in sub–Saharan Africa; there are countries in that area have forty percent of population infected and living their life with despair. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) could destroy the immune system that our bodies use to fight off diseases in 10 years; breaking down of the immune system means that we are unable to fight the infections and causes death. In early 1990’s, GSK (GlaxoSmithKline), BMS (Bristol-Myers Squibb) and some other companies developed a series of medicine which could attack HIV in patient’s body; and later in 1996, Dr. David Ho discovered that by taking a combination of

2.4 million people died of an AIDS-related illness in Africa, and since the beginning of

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region of the world that is most affected by HIV/AIDS. The United Nations reports that an estimated 25.4 million people are living with HIV and that approximately 3.1 million new infections occurred in 2004. To put these figures in context, more than 60 percent of the people living with the infection reside in Africa. Even these staggering figures do not quite capture the true extent and impact that this disease causes on the continent. In 1998, about 200,000 Africans died as a result of various wars taking place on the continent. In that same year, more than 2 million succumbed to HIV/AIDS (Botchwey, 2000).