[afro-nets] UN Says AIDS Will Kill 80 Million Africans by 2025

[Leela McCullough <leela@healthnet.org>]

UN Says AIDS Will Kill 80 Million Africans by 2025
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From: CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention News Update (3 stories)
Friday, March 04, 2005

"UN Says AIDS Will Kill 80 Million Africans by 2025"
Associated Press (03.04.05): Anthony Mitchell

UNAIDS today released a report that paints best-, middle-, and
worst-case scenarios for Africa's AIDS epidemic depending on the
international community's commitment to fight the disease. In
the report, written by hundreds of the world's leading HIV/AIDS
experts and people with HIV, all scenarios warn that the epi-
demic's worst is still to come.

"There is no single prescription that will change the outcome of
the epidemic," stated the report. "The death toll will continue
to rise no matter what is done."

The worst-case scenario, which plots current policies and fund-
ing over the next two decades, "offers a disturbing window on
the future death toll across the continent, with the cumulative
number of people dying from AIDS increasing more than fourfold,"
the report said. "The number of children orphaned by the epi-
demic will continue to rise beyond 2025."

If more is not done soon, more than 80 million Africans could
die by 2025, and 90 million people - more than 10 percent of the
continent's population - could become HIV-infected. Even with
massive funding and better treatment, some 67 million Africans
are likely to die from HIV/AIDS. There are already 11 million
orphans, and some 6,500 people are dying each day, according to
UNAIDS.

"If by 2025 millions of African people are still becoming in-
fected with HIV each year, these scenarios suggest it will not
be because there was no choice," the report stated. "It will be
because, collectively, there was insufficient political will to
change behavior at all levels. What we do today will change the
future," it concluded.

"The scenarios are not predictions" but plausible stories about
the future, said UNAIDS chief Dr. Peter Piot. "Millions of new
infections can be prevented if Africa and the rest of the world
decide to tackle AIDS as an exceptional crisis that has the po-
tential to devastate entire societies and economies," Piot said.

SOUTH AFRICA:
"South Africa Awards Tenders to Speed Up Rollout of AIDS Drugs"
Agence France Presse (03.04.05)

In a statement issued late Thursday, South Africa's Health Min-
istry announced the government has awarded contracts to seven
companies to accelerate the introduction of free antiretrovirals
(ARVs) for AIDS patients.

"The successful suppliers and provincial health procurement of-
ficials will meet every three months. This is a mandatory meet-
ing to allow the provinces and suppliers to plan adequately and
meet the demand for ARVs at public health facilities," the min-
istry said, adding that the first drug deliveries will begin in
six to eight weeks.

The contracts are valid until 2007, SAFM radio reported. The
companies awarded the contracts include Aspen Pharmacare,
GlaxoSmithKline and MSD, the local division of Merck.

According to UN figures, about one in five South Africans are
living with HIV/AIDS - the highest caseload of any nation.
President Thabo Mbeki, whose previous questioning of the link
between HIV and AIDS fomented controversy, declared in his re-
cent state of the nation address that his government's anti-AIDS
plan is "the best in the world." Last year, Mbeki set the goal
of distributing free ARVs to 53,000 people via 113 state-
accredited health centers by March 2005. Activists, however, es-
timate that only 20,000 people are receiving the medications.

INDIA:
"In India, Sex Trade Fuels HIV's Spread"
USA Today (02.24.05)::Steve Sternberg

In male-dominated Indian society, women have little voice over
their sexual or reproductive lives. About half of India's new
HIV infections occur in women, 90 percent of whom were virgins
before - and monogamous after - getting married. So many married
men are transmitting HIV to their wives that married women are
one of India's highest-risk groups. Men who pay for sex, men who
have sex with other men, and sexually active men who share in-
fected needles are fueling India's HIV epidemic.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government is more aggressive in
India's fight against AIDS than the government preceding him,
which had opposed promoting condoms and had downplayed India's
epidemic. The current government nearly doubled the AIDS budget,
from $31 million in 1999 to $57 million in 2005.

Singh has personally demanded that every government ministry
prepare three-year HIV prevention plans, said S.Y. Quraishi, di-
rector of India's National AIDS Control Organization. Over the
next six months, four trains outfitted as clinics and HIV coun-
seling/testing centers will visit 40,000 villages in NACO's'
"Red Ribbon Express" campaign. On mobile stages, entertainers
will do guerilla theater with an AIDS message.

This summer, the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation will help
train 1 million Indian doctors in HIV basics and extend the
reach of free treatment from one patient in every 1,250 to one
patient in 50 by the year's end. The number of treatment centers
will grow from six to 25 this year.

With Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation support, the Avahan
("call to action") India AIDS Initiative, which promotes HIV
prevention to sex workers and their clients, is attempting to
establish 50 clinics in high-risk areas.


--
Leela McCullough, Ed.D.
Director of Information Services
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