|
An Africa mired by Aids
07/07/2003 08:56 - (SA)
Johannesburg - When US President George W Bush visits Africa this week, he will find a continent crippled by catastrophe.
Millions upon millions are already dead, orphaned or sick from Aids. The continent's triple scourges of poverty, disease and hunger are getting worse every day, exacerbated by the deadly plague.
Frail education and health care systems are being ripped apart as many of Africa's scarce teachers, nurses and doctors succumb to the disease.
"This will afford a chance for the president to look into Africans' eyes and see their suffering," said Dr Ibrahim Atta, a Nigerian Aids professional.
The devastating Aids pandemic is one of the major themes of Bush's five-nation trip.
He plans to visit an Aids clinic in Uganda and meet with infected mothers in Nigeria. He will travel to Botswana, where more than 38% of adults are infected, the highest rate in the world.
And he will visit South Africa, which has the highest number of infections - five million.
"The amount of suffering associated in the world with HIV/Aids is not something we can turn a blind eye to," said Dr Joseph O'Neill, Bush's Aids czar.
In his State of the Union speech in January, Bush pledged $15bn over five years to fighting Aids in poor nations, mainly in Africa.
The money would go to preventing new infections, providing AIDS medicine to some of those already infected and caring for children orphaned by the virus.
"This $15bn virtually triples the current US commitment to fighting Aids internationally," said Dr Peter Piot, head of UNAids. "It's a major leap forward."
The plan was endorsed by Congress in May but the money must be approved each year. The administration is seeking only $1.7bn for the next fiscal year, and congressional aides say that finding much more money would be tough with a rapidly growing US deficit.
Aids workers are disheartened by the slow process of getting the promised money. They need an avalanche of funds immediately to even make a small dent in the pandemic.
The disease has already killed 20 million people, the vast majority of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. More than 11 million African children have lost at least one parent to the pandemic.
Roughly 30 million Africans are currently infected with the disease, with no immediate hope of getting the expensive medicines that could save their lives.
"Obviously there is an issue of urgency," said Marta Darder, an Aids coordinator in South Africa for the humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
Critics complain that over the last two decades the United States and other wealthy countries did little to stem the pandemic as it expanded across the globe.
With the disease now out of control, wealthy nations would need to spend at least $10.5bn a year to make any impact on its spread in the developing world, experts say. Foreign donors spent only $2.8bn last year.
"The scale of the effort has been meager in comparison with the scale of the disease," said Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Others are angry that conservative groups pressured Congress to earmark at least one-third of the plan's prevention funds for abstinence programs, "which we know don't work," said Sandra Thurman, Aids chief for the Clinton administration.
O'Neill said Bush is deeply committed to fighting the pandemic.
The $15bn pledge came from the president's belief that "the United States, even though we've done a lot, could do a lot more and take real leadership on this and encourage others to follow us", he said.
Aids activists agree it is time for wealthy nations in Europe and Asia to increase their commitments to fighting Aids as well. Countries affected by the disease must also work to save themselves, they said.
"This is about the survival of the nation," Piot said.
In Senegal, Bush will find a nation largely untouched by the virus, thanks in part to the foresight of government leaders who started prevention programs well before the disease became epidemic there.
A massive anti-Aids campaign in Uganda has reduced adult infection rates from 18% in 1995 to 5 percent in 2001.
But Bush's other hosts present a more dismal picture.
The disease is spreading rapidly through Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. In South Africa, the government been criticised as lackadaisical in its fight against Aids.
Facing utter devastation, Botswana has adopted one of the most aggressive anti-Aids programs in the world with a promise to provide free Aids medicine to all its infected people.
The new US leadership in Aids funding, though late in coming, is definitely welcome, said Charlie MacCormack, CEO of Save the Children.
"(But) even if we respond properly now, the worst of the pandemic is still ahead of us," he said.
- AP
|
News
