22 million Africans HIV-infected, ill
with AIDSwhile African leaders ignore disaster-in-waiting
22 million Africans HIV-infected, ill
with AIDS
while African leaders ignore disaster-in-waiting
|
"Too much of Africa will enter the 21st century watching the gains of the 20th evaporate," Callisto Madavo, the vice president of the World Bank African region has warned the world at an international conference in Lusaka, Zambia. In a realistic but chilling representation of the scourge and economic, social and human cost of AIDS in Africa, health and economic experts noted on Monday September 13, 1999 tthat the pandemic could wipe out all the gains of the past century. "The impact that Aids is already having on sub-Saharan
Africa is catastrophic, and the scenario will worsen unless
global leaders work together to invest more - much more -
prevention efforts and programs to address the multitude of
social and economic problems that AIDS has brought," UNAIDS
executive director Peter Piot argued. "The impact is all too
comprehensible ... the protracted sickness, the fractured
families, the weakening workforce, the relentless ritual of
funerals, and the morgues that no longer even bother to
close," Madavo added. Since 1984, AIDS reportedly has caused
the deaths of 11 million Africans. The conferees said that
almost 22.5 million people are infected with HIV or ill with
Aids. Hence, Madavo underlined the fact that "the damage
that Aids has done in the present is incalculable. Now it
threatens millions of the future.... AIDS now poses the
foremost threat to development in Africa." |
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Should Africa debates begin and end
at The
New York Times and
The
Washington Post?
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Martin Luther King's legacy, Jews and Black History Month |
