UAE | General
Gulf News says: Education eliminates AIDS
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – AIDS – the silent killer that knows no boundaries.
- Published: 00:00 April 29, 2001
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – AIDS – the silent killer that knows no boundaries. The cause of more research than most other diseases. Yet it is AIDS that creates the fear, the most publicity and the most research funding, it once being described, wrongly, as a "Western" disease. It is reaching such proportions that whole villages are dying, chiefly in Africa through inadequate resources and finance.
At present there is no known cure for AIDS, only relief to forestall the disease. People with human immunodeficiency virus – HIV – the precursor to AIDS, can look and feel perfectly well until the virus attacks the immune system, then an infected person will be susceptible to a large number of illnesses with a variety of symptoms, usually leading to AIDS. Last year there were just over 36 million people globally reported to have HIV, new cases this year exceed five million; deaths from AIDS in 2000 were three million. In 1999 there were over 13 million orphans, due to AIDS.
Such alarming figures, produced by the UN, have set Secretary-General Kofi Annan on a campaign to raise more funds to fight the disease and improve health care, especially in Africa. Which is why a conference has just ended in Abuja, Nigeria, where presidents and prime ministers were invited to discuss the problem and preferably increase funds. However, the meeting fell very short of expectations. Fewer leaders attended than hoped for, and funds from the West, set at 0.7 of GNP, do not look likely to materialise. The hoped for 15 per cent from African countries towards the AIDS/HIV battle was diluted to cover health care in general. Maybe African delegates saw this as a better proposition, but it entirely overlooks the most important aspect of AIDS/HIV. Namely, education.
Educate the people on its dangers and the methods of transmission and casualties will reduce. This happened in Thailand which had an alarming problem. Adequate health care is important for all people, but with AIDS/HIV, preventative measures are more likely to succeed in the long run than costly medical treatment that requires continual monitoring of patients, which African health services have neither the staff nor the funds to undertake.
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