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Impact of HIV/AIDS worsens African famine
Joint UNAIDS/World Health Organisation Press Release. 26 November 2002.
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The HIV/AIDS epidemic is fuelling a widening and increasingly deadly famine in southern Africa, according to a new report "AIDS Epidemic Update 2002". The comprehensive new update on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic was issued today by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), in advance of the upcoming December 1 commemoration of World AIDS Day.
According to the new report, the African famine is a clear example of how the impact of HIV/AIDS reaches beyond the loss of life and health care costs traditionally associated with disease. More than 14 million people are now at risk of starvation in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. All six of these predominantly agricultural societies are battling serious AIDS epidemics, with more than 5 million adults currently living with HIV/AIDS in these countries, out of a total adult population of some 26 million. These six countries also have a total of 600,000 children under 15 living with HIV/AIDS. The new report details how the impact of HIV/AIDS in farm communities has greatly decreased the capacity of these communities to survive the famine.
"The famine in southern Africa brings the world face-to-face with the deep and devastating impact of HIV/AIDS," said Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS. "What we are seeing today in a number of countries of sub-Saharan Africa is an HIV epidemic that is overwhelming the coping resources of entire communities. We must act now, on a much larger scale than anything we have done before, not only to assist those nations already hard-hit, but also to stop the explosive growth of HIV/AIDS in the parts of the world where the epidemic is newly emerging."
The report shows a rapidly expanding epidemic in new areas. The world's fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic is located today in Eastern Europe and the Central Asian Republics. In 2002, there were an estimated 250,000 new infections there, bringing the total for the region to 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In some countries, the epidemic's growth is startling; in Uzbekistan, for example, there were almost as many new infections reported in the first six months of 2002 as in the entire previous decade.
Several countries in Asia and the Pacific, including China, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, may also face huge growth in their epidemics. UNAIDS warns that 11 million more people will acquire HIV/AIDS in Asia by 2007, unless concerted and effective action is taken to increase access to HIV/AIDS prevention and care in the region, where the epidemic is still in its early phases.
"We know there is a point in every country's AIDS crisis where the epidemic breaks out from especially vulnerable groups into the wider population," says Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization. "This is a critical moment of opportunity and danger. Unless we see national prevention initiatives championed by the highest level of government, the growth in infections can be unstoppable. We are at this critical moment today in a number of countries in Eastern Europe, central, south and eastern Asia."
Globally, the report finds that 42 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS, 5 million were newly-infected in 2002, and 3.1 million people were killed by HIV/AIDS this year. In sub-Saharan Africa, the epidemic continues to expand. An estimated 3.5 million new infections occurred in 2002, and 2.4 million Africans died of the disease. In Asia, 7.2 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS.
Today's report details the manner in which HIV/AIDS is fuelling other crises, most notably the famine in southern Africa. There, HIV/AIDS is combining with other factors-including droughts, floods and in some cases short-sighted national and international policies-to cause a steady fall in agricultural production and to cut deep into household income.
The full report can be downloaded on the righthand side of this page. |
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