International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
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Chapter 3
AIDS in Africa:
no longer business as usual

 

 

 

This Tanzanian mother is HIV-positive.
Over 23 million sub-Saharan Africans are estimated to be infected,
including 1 million children.
Nearly 42 million children worldwide are predicted to lose one or both parents to AIDS by 2010.

Photo: Sean Sprague/ Panos Pictures, Tanzania

 

Over the next decade, AIDS will kill more people in sub Saharan Africa than all the wars of the 20th century.
"This isn't some disease, it's a disaster," says a Kenyan community worker. With more than 70 per cent of the global caseload of AIDS afflicting sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is considered the greatest single threat to development and political stability.
This chapter looks at measures to improve prevention and health care in light of this highly preventable disaster, concluding that nations and agencies must adopt a common strategy which recognizes that prevention is possible and affordable.

 

Box 3.1 Save the orphans

Box 3.2 Herbal healers and HIV in Uganda