AIDS in Africa Information

Since the earliest reported cases in the 1980s, AIDS has been a global epidemic. Nowhere, however, has the disease been more devastating than in Africa. Although it has only one-eighth of the world's population, Africa accounts for two-thirds of people infected with AIDS and 75 percent of all deaths from the disease. AIDS has affected all areas of African society and poses serious challenges to what is already one of the poorest regions of the world.

History

• Africa's first official case of AIDS was reported in 1982. However, Avert, an international AIDS charity based in the United Kingdom, cites past studies that suggest cases of AIDS in Africa as early as the 1960s. The disease reached epidemic levels in Africa in the 1980s and continued to spread in the years that followed. Transmission of the disease was especially rapid in the area of East Africa around Lake Victoria.

Factors

• Research by national and international organizations, including AIDS Action, the World Health Organization and the United Nations, have cited a variety of economic, social and cultural factors as contributing to the spread of AIDS across Africa. Those factors include poverty, the low social status of women, prostitution, social biases against condoms and worker migration. Truck drivers and other workers far from their homes and families often patronized prostitutes, contributing to the spread of the disease.

Effects

• According to the United Nations, AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa. Women account for nearly 60 percent of AIDS cases in Africa. Women and young people ages 15 to 24 are at the greatest risk, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In addition, many African newborns are infected with the disease because of transmission from HIV-positive mothers. The prevalence of AIDS among adults has devastated the economies of many African nations, with many people missing work because of illness. Deaths among teachers have seriously affected education systems in many African nations.

Prevention/Solution

• African governments and international organizations were slow to respond to the spread of AIDS. Corruption, as well as wars and stagnant economies, hampered the ability of African governments to respond to the epidemic. Meanwhile, international organizations such as the World Health Organization did not consider AIDS to be Africa's top public health concern. In more recent years, however, most African nations have developed national strategies and policies to deal with the disease. Estimates by the United Nations and WHO in 2007 suggest that the prevalence of AIDS in Africa has stabilized. Some countries have even shown declining infection rates.

Geography

• The incidence of HIV infection and AIDS varies across regions of Africa. The rate of infection is much higher in southern Africa than in eastern and western Africa. In South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, an estimated 15 percent to 20 percent of the population is infected with HIV. In Botswana, the infection rate is more than 23 percent. Infection rates exceed 5 percent in East African nations such as Kenya and Uganda. In Nigeria, HIV infection rates are 3 percent. One of Africa's lowest HIV infection rates is in Senegal, where the rate is estimated to be less than 1 percent. Senegal was one of the first African nations to take aggressive action against the disease.

Famous Ties

• For some African leaders, AIDS has not only been a national epidemic, but a source of personal grief as well. In 1987, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda announced that his son, Masuzyo, had died of AIDS. In 2005, AIDS claimed the life of Makgatho Mandela, the son of former South African President Nelson Mandela.