Aids in Africa Essay 20

AIDS In Africa HIV-AIDS has infected over thirty million people in the world. Over 95% of all AIDS cases in the world are in Africa and in some of those countries over 40% of the people are infected (Frederickson and Kanabus HIV and AIDS in Africa 1). AIDS does not solely affect homosexuals, or any certain ethnicity of people, either; HIV-AIDS can affect any type of ethnicity including African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, Indians, and Hispanic people. AIDS cannot be reversed or cured, but with proper treatment this deadly virus can be controlled and people can live a nearly normal life. In Africa, though, proper treatment is not nearly as available as it is in some other countries. Approximately 2.3 million people died in 2003 in Sub-Saharan Africa alone and that is only the beginning (Frederickson and Kanabus HIV 1). Because of AIDS and its devastating effects and increasing infection rates in Africa, organizations and governments are increasing their efforts to stop this disease. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on AIDS efforts, but still the disease continues to spread and take thousands of people 's lives each year. In 1992, 20% of Botswana, Africa was infected with HIV-AIDS. In 1995, 1/3 of the country was infected. Today over 40% of Botswana is infected with HIV-AIDS, and these numbers continue to increase (Epstlen 70). The rest of Africa is mimicking these same numbers as infection rates continue to rise. Of the 27 million infected in Africa, 3.2 million were new cases diagnosed in 2003, and over 2.3 million people died in Africa because of HIV-AIDS last year (Frederickson and Kanabus HIV 1). Such numbers are astronomical compared to the rest of the world. In the United States less than 1% of the population is infected; in Russia and India the numbers also match the United States. In Thailand, where it is claimed to be more corrupted in sex and drug trades and have even fewer anti-AIDS efforts than in Africa, the infection rates are

Cited: Barnett, Tony and Alan Whiteside. Aids In the Twenty-First Century. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Mann, Johnathon and Daniel Tarantold. Aids in the World II. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1996: 252.