|
AIDS As
African Killer
- AIDS killed 1.4 million people in
eastern and southern Africa last year, overtaking
armed conflicts as the No. 1 killer in the
region.
- The epidemic, which has hit this
portion of the African continent harder than
anywhere else in the world, has left 6 million
children orphaned in eastern and southern Africa,
amounting to 70 percent of the world's AIDS
orphans.
- Forty-eight percent of the world's
AIDS cases are in this region.
- AIDS is spreading and stifling the
economic and social infrastructure of the entire
continent. It is killing the most productive age
group.It is doubling and tripling infant
mortality rates. It is returning life expectancy
to the levels of 1960s.
- Worldwide, some
16,000 people daily are infected by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and there
are 8.2 million AIDS orphans, most in sub-Saharan
Africa.
- In Uganda, some 1.1 million
children under 15 or 11 percent of the country's
child population have lost one or both parents to
AIDS, the highest number of AIDS orphans in the
world. In the developed world, that figure is at
1 percent.
- Especially important was educating
people on prevention and on building tolerance in
the region, where AIDS victims are frequently
shamed into silence. Men, more than women, were
intolerant of the disease, often refusing to be
tested or to support wives stricken with AIDS.
Back to Medi News
HIV UPDATE
|
