Problem of AIDS in Africa - Essay Example

Page AIDS in Africa Sociology October 29, TABLE OF CONTENTS l. The problem 3 2. Origin of the problem 4 3. Solutions tried 5 4.Why the solutions have not worked 9 5. Conclusions 11 6. References 12 AIDS in AFRICA HIV/AIDS is a global problem. It is one of the most devastating health problems that caused death to many people of the world. Africa is the mostly affected region in the world. Its population constitutes 11% of the world and is home to 60% of people in the world living with HIV. The severity of the problem cannot be just set aside since every year, millions of Africans died pointlessly of a disease that is otherwise avoidable. According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2012), AIDS is the number one killer disease in African region. Mortality among the children was very high at 14,620,000 and at adults also very high at 49,343,000 in 2001. Figure below shows percentage of HIV prevalence among 15-24 year olds in selected sub-Saharan African countries in 2001-2003. As shown, there is higher incidence of HIV cases in women. This becomes a problem because of the high probability of transmitting the disease to the babies during pregnancy. WHO (2012) found out that due to numerous infectious diseases plaguing Africa, economic development is hard to achieve, thus, the African region lags behind other region in terms of human development. The abovementioned report also stated that “72% of deaths in the African region are caused by communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, respiratory infections, other infectious diseases, and complications of pregnancy and childbirth”. This is coupled by other socio-economic problems of the region, extreme poverty, and lack of education. It is regrettable but these deaths are preventable. Solution to these problems has become a big challenge to the African States in particular, and to the world in general. The origin of the problem According to Avert.org (2011), AIDS started with chimpanzees. This report stated that conclusive evidence based on a comprehensive 10 year study found a strain of Simian Immuno deficiency virus in a number of chimpanzees in Cameroon. It was a viral ancestor of HIV that eventually caused AIDS in humans. There was no other strain of the same kind found in chimpanzees from other parts of the world, so it was concluded that the strain came from Africa. Same source reported an unconfirmed rumor that HIV was brought by an infected individual who travelled through the river from Cameroon to Congo, and spread it through sexual network. As speculated in Avert.org (2011), HIV was carried in the Eastern part of Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda) in 1979 and reached the epidemic level in early 1980s. It was later on established that HIV in West Africa is due to “labor migration, high ratio of men in the urban population, low status of women, lack of circumcision, and the prevalence of the highly transmitted disease”; that sex workers played a big part of its transmittal in East Africa”, and that about 85% of sex workers in Nairobi were affected with AIDS in 1986 (Avert.org, 2011). The first African country to be heavily affected with AIDS was Uganda in 1980s. It further spread into other areas sparing the Western Equatorial parts simply because the distance and difficulty in travelling made it uneasy for sexual network to penetrate. Spread of disease was facilitated by war between tribes, truck drivers, soldiers, migrants, traders, and military personnel who engaged with sex trades and spread it on their travel routes. In the early 1980s, people were not aware of HIV and thought of it only as an infectious virus. Because of lack of information about HIV, people were unaware that they were infected by the virus. The initial reaction of the government was to disclaim and hide it. Even the World Health Organization maintained that AIDS in Africa was not their first concern during its initial days but then admitted their mistake afterwards (Avert.org, 2011). Life was hard for people tested and found out to be a HIV/AIDS carrier because they were discriminated upon and despised by the society. Solutions that have been tried There are several solutions tried by the government and other world organizations. Some have been successful while some did not materialize for various reasons. For purposes of discussion, a compilation of the solutions and the reasons why they did not work is described below. These solutions are drawn from the report of the World Health Organization, the so called “African Regional Health Report” of 2012. When the spread of AIDS disease in Africa was discovered, the initial efforts done by the government to control the problem was prevention. This constitutes advising people to change their sexual behavior, abstaining or delaying first sex, having only one partner or to use condoms (Avert.org, 2011). Other nations helped by providing debt relief and increasing aids to African countries. WHO accounts that help came from Group of 8 industrialized countries in July 2005 and the package relief of 148 members of the World Trade Organization (2012). This trade package approved in the Doha Development Round is “to abolish tariffs on African products paid by wealthy countries so that African farmers can compete internationally.” The organization saw the need to extend help to the poor countries of Africa, to lessen human sufferings by improving health conditions, and to give way to the future progress. However, in doing so, member countries would like to be assured that funds are used effectively. WHO detailed the Abuja Declaration initiated on April 21, 2001 wherein African leaders in the City of Abuja in Nigeria declared the continent under the “state of emergency” due to HIV/AIDS epidemic so that resolving this health problem would be their government’s top priority (2012). As part of the covenant, each of African state governments had to pledge 15% of their budget to AIDS problem. Further to this, and on the same year, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was formed whose objective is to “eradicate African poverty, promote sustainable growth and development, help countries in Africa take a more active part in the global economy, and improve the status of women.” To NEPAD, the disease is a stumbling block for Africa’s economic development and damaging to the “social fabric” of the continent. As an element of its strategy, NEPAD called on the African governments to honor their 15% pledge of support for health care. Another initiative, according to WHO (2012), is the United Kingdom’s Commission for Africa in March 2005, wherein UKC called for more investments in education, rebuilding of health systems, and the scaling up of services to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The UKC, gathered together by the United Kingdom, is composed of public servants, private enterprises, and political leaders in Africa. This Commission, which lasted only for one year, sought for more investments, more infrastructure, reduction of corruption, bureaucracy, and reduction of tariff in Africa to boost trade to eliminate poverty of people. All targets are for poverty reduction, health care, and providing education (WHO, 2012). As detailed in its report, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of 2000, whose targets expected to be achieved by 2015, are to reduce poverty by half; providing primary education; reducing the number of children’s death by three-quarters; reduction of maternal deaths by two-thirds; reversing the epidemics of HIVS/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases. The MDG’s objective is to unite a world-wide initiative to help the poorest countries in the world. Another initiative described by WHO relates to pregnancy. Seeing that pregnancy causes many deaths, Safe Motherhood was launched in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1987. Initially, maternal health care was treated as a family matter, but later on, it was considered it as a global health agenda because of the increasing pregnancy related sickness and deaths. As a result, the International conference on Population and Development in Cairo Egypt in 1984 urged all countries to address issues on maternal rights and child health. The UN conference resulted in a recommendation of the need to provide sexual and reproductive information to protect pregnant women, to criminalize violence against women, and to condemn the harmful practice of female genital mutilation. Towards this, WHO “Making Pregnancy Safer Initiative” commenced in 1999. The objective of the program is to ensure that mothers and infants have timely access to the care they need (WHO, 2012). Other efforts were also initiated by world organizations and African community. WHO, (2012) reports the joint sponsorship of UNICEF and WHO on Managing Childhood Illness in 1990 implemented in 44 states out of 46, whose objective is to reduce the growing incidence of illnesses due to preventable diseases. Another scheme found in WHO (2012) was The Community funded scheme in Mali and Mauritania that provided 37 out of 57 health centers trained staffs to deliver babies, to perform emergency obstetric surgery, as well as to provide them emergency kits containing anesthetics needed by mothers. Funds for this are shared by the development partners, the government, community, health associations, and patients who give a small donation. Called Obstetric Package, Mauritians have a health insurance that covers antenatal, delivery and postnatal care. In this scheme, family contributes only $0.26, and the rest is shared by the French Development Aid, WHO, and the Nouakchott District. Finally, hope for medications came in the form of Antiretroviral Drugs (ARV). ARVs are medications for the treatment of infection by retroviruses, primarily HIV. The intention of this drug is “to lower the level of HIV in the blood and postpone the development of opportunistic infections, allowing people to regain a good quality of opportunistic infections” (WHO). ARV medicines are said to be effective in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV drug pregnancy. However, ARV programs have been criticized due to affordability. According to A. Otudola (2004), ARV is an program of the World Health Organization to have "universal access to antiretroviral therapy for all living with HIV/AIDS". The target of the plan is "to have 3 million people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWA) on anti-retroviral treatment by 2005". Over 70% of the world's population of PLWA is reportedly in Africa. Why Solutions Have Not Worked Despite several efforts and initiatives, some did not work well or projects were not fully implemented for a variety of reasons. The first government initiative of Prevention of Safe Sex through condoms was contradicted on account of religious beliefs and teachings (Avert.org, 2011). It seems that the African governments reneged on their pledge of 15% budget support as agreed in Abuja Declaration so that efforts of NEFAD was needed to remind them of such promise. Other efforts did not do well too as WHO said the UNDG was not fully successful, there was poor governance, national poverty traps, particularly found in the African region, presence of “pockets of poverty within regions”, and political neglect. With reference to Safe Motherhood program, solutions did not fully work because of insufficient education, weak health systems, illiteracy, and women’s low status. There was inadequate coverage of maternal services due to poverty, weak health systems and shortage of skilled workers. WHO found out that only 43% of birth in the region was delivered by skilled attendants, the rest were done by neighbors, or by the mothers themselves. Obstetrics Package is found to be limited as Mauritania is only one out of the five countries who joined the program. There is a need to spread it to other countries as well. In pursuing the Millennium goal, it is observed from the report that treatment of these diseases becomes difficult because of cost, climate and geography, political turmoil, and lack of funding. Climate and geography made the treatment of malaria too difficult to handle. Cutting down of trees to prevent malaria is against environment while water and sanitation required a larger scale of study. Meanwhile, the recourse to sleep under a mosquito net, and to filter the water they use and drink by a simple cloth to avoid Guinea-worm disease is considered crude and inadequate. Related to this, the review from WHO (2012) showed that Africa still has the highest neonatal death rate in the world, and highest maternal mortality ratios worldwide. Appraisal said the problem of basic sanitation still exists; only 58% of people living in sub-Saharan Africa have access to safe water supplies; non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and are on the rise; and injuries are still the top causes of death in the region. The introduction of Antiretroviral Drugs (ARV) in the early stages had become controversial because pharmaceutical companies could not agree on a uniform low pricing. Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines CAEM (2009) cited too many people are unable to reach for these drugs because of higher price. The patent problems and competition from manufacturing countries like India and Brazil made lower pricing more difficult. This once again provides a problem where drugs could be out of reach. Since pricing is a barrier for treatment and funding for HIV/AIDS is stagnating, CAEM made an appeal for global support as it cited a shortfall of at least at least US43 billion to fund existing programs of 2010. A. Odutola (2004) questions the ARV program arguing that the long term sustainability of the program is doubtful without donor. He said Africa is a poor country and that it could not afford to put counter funding to procure ARVS from the multinational companies even at reduced costs. Conclusion Africa should not be left alone with its problem. Several initiatives have been exerted to alleviate the sufferings of its people. The aim of the United Nations and the World Health Organization to scale it down to zero remains to be a big challenge to the world. It will take time before this objective is achieved because there are other contributory factors that need to be addressed along with HIV/AIDS. The prevalence of this dreaded disease is somehow contained because people are now informed and educated. People afflicted with this disease not only in Africa, but in other parts of the world, are now fearless in coming out in the open. In some percentage, discrimination is lessened, and people treat them with sympathy and compassion because now, there are available cures that will lengthen lives of those afflicted. References Avert.org. (2011). “History of HIV & AIDS in Africa”. Retrieved 08 November 2012 from http://www.avert.org/history-aids-africa.htm Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. (July, 2009). HIV/AIDS Treatment in Developing Countries: The Battle for Long Term Survival has just begun. Retrieved 08 November 2012 http://www. mstaccess.org Otdula, A. (17 March, 2004). ARV Drug Treatment in Africa. Retrieved 08 November 2012 from http://academic.udayton.edu/health/06world/africa04.htm World Health Organization. (October, 2012). “The African Regional Health Report”. The Health of the People. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Retrieved 03 November 2012 http://www.who.int/bulletin/africanhealth/en/index.html Read More