AIDS is spread through sexual activity and blood-to-blood contact. Once thought of as a disease of the homosexual community and of drug addicts it is now considered a disease of the whole of society. It infects, and affects, people of all ages and all walks of life.
There is as yet no cure but anti retroviral drugs are available that will assist in recovering the body's immune system to the point where the life of those infected can be extended and they can live a relatively normal life.
Foreign Policy in Focus states "Africa accounts for 70% of all HIV/AIDS cases in the world although it represents only 10% of the global population."
Today in Sub Saharan Africa a person dies of AIDS related illnesses every 20 seconds. That is over 7,000 a day or 50,000 each week or 2,500,000 each year. That is more than those who have died in wars, famines and floods.
In a CBC News Article Stephen Lewis, UN's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa is quoted as saying that the African AIDS crisis is "mass murder by complacency".
With unemployment up around 50% of all people the vast majority of these people have no money and no means of earning money to sustain life.
People are dying at all levels of society, such that the underlying infrastructure is crumbling. Teachers, police, public servants and such are dying and there is no one to replace them.
There is now a societal generation gap that reduces the control points in society and diminishes the role models that are needed to develop the younger generation or at least those few that will survive.
Governments are at best slow to act. Allafrica.com's article on AIDS quotes UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as criticising African leaders for being so embarrassed to talk about sex that they prefer to allow people to die. It states that he calls on citizens to "take on this fight...they should not be afraid to challenge their government to do something." I have been personally dismayed at the response of most people. Some have said, "It is the survival of the fittest .. Nature's method of natural selection .. let them die". Others state "It is not our problem we have enough problems in our own country .. let their Government do something about it". And yet more say "The problem is so big what can we do about it?"
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