SCOURGE WITH HIV/AIDS AMONG US

Some twenty-two years ago, the first cases of a mysterious illness that destroyed the body's natural defences against infection were reported in the United States. Since then, the spread of the HumanImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has become a global health emergency. But in the sub-saharan Africa,the world's poorest and least developed region, where HIV/AIDS has gone from emergency to tragedy-endangering not just the lives of its victims, but the social, economic and political fabric of society.

The numbers alone are crushing. At the end of 2003 it was estimated that two thirds of the 40 million people living with the virus were African. Some 3 million of the 5 million new infections in 2003 also occureed in Africa, where infection rates are seven times the world average. In some countries, as much as 40 percent of the total population carries HIV. In a region where nearly half of the population lives on less than $1 per day, barely 1 in 100 people in need of lifesaving antiretroviral drugs can afford them. For the rest there is only the certyainty of slow death.

From the "3 X 5" campaign, to provide ARVs and other medications to 3 million people living with AIDS in developing countries by the ende of 2005 to the now "universal access" initiative campaign which was launched in January 2006, we can see that little or no achievement has been done. It should be noted that HIV/AIDS is an issue in our society. It is taking away the
future of most African countries. It is affecting the most productive of ages, between 15 - 45 yrs.There are major problems that is not making this HIV/AIDS go away. The pandemic is driven by"deep and persistent" poverty, food Insecurity, Indebtedness, gender Inequality and stigma and discrimination.

Because of these issues, access to ARVs is often not a relity for those who are the most marginalised and in greatest need of the medicines.

POVERTY means going hungry. Hunger leads to malnutrition and a more rapid
breakdown of the Immune system.

SOCIAL STIGMA against those with the disease means that many do not get
tested in the first place.

And GENDER INEQUALITY puts burdens on women that they cannot shake off on
their own.Those burdens Include responsibility for caring for children and other family members, ensuring that limited food supplies go first to hungry children and the risk of abandonment by men when an HIV-positive status is disclosed.
Pivotal to all theseissues is the need for food, a need as urgent as the drugs themselves.It is not only that they need the food to take the medicine and that they need to eat more than they do when they were sick to get healthy, but their appetite increases.

The Lack of food or money for transport, difficult housing conditions, pervasive
stigms, the stress of believing they will die without providing for their children's care all serve to accelarate a downward spiral into despair and hinder their access to ARVs drugs, even when those drugs are free. Because women are primarily responsible for feeding their children and their families, they are most deeply affected by this inability.

(culled from AFRICA RENEWAL)

From these article above, it can be seen point blank that women as the female and weaker gender is being left with the responsibility and burden where these Virus is concerned.

As AIESECERs in our HIV/AIDS projects , how do you all out there think that some of these issues can be really minimised in order to be able to create a positive impact on rate of these Virus.

Let the passion and love keep on burning.