This is the story about the way the world is. It is a world that has allowed a deadly, but preventable disease to thrive in the human family for more than twenty years, infecting and killing more than sixty million of its members. It is a world in which the human right to health does not exist for most people. It is a world in which respect for life itself seems to have been lost.
AIDS in the world: It is a story about us. What kind of people are we? How did we come to this point? Where are we going?
Many theories have been propagated to the origin of AIDS. HIV causes AIDS, so the origin of HIV, is an explanation to the discovery of AIDS. HIV is lentivirus, and part of a larger group (retrovirus).
The ‘Hunter” theory is of the explanation that HIV passed from chimpanzees to man through eating, or blood getting into cuts or wounds on the hunter.
The Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) theory states that HIV was transferred via medical experiments. It believes that polio vaccines played a role in the transfer.
Amongst others also is the ‘Conspiracy Theory’. It says that HIV is ‘man-made’. It believes that HIV was manufactured as part of a biological warfare programme, designed to wipe out large numbers of black and homosexual people. Some people believe that the virus was spread over the world through the smallpox vaccine programme, either deliberately or inadvertently.
Many believe AIDS is an African disease, and blame Africa for its spread. More than 20 million Africans have already died of AIDS. Africans are not responsible for AIDS, the world is. Even if AIDS is an African disease, should the world neglect her? AIDS in Africa is a nightmare, but it is a nightmare for the world as well. South Africa has the largest AIDS population on the planet, 1,500 people are affected every day. Until the world itself changes, AIDS and other epidemics will thrive in the human family for generations to come, and there will be a big price to pay.
The world should know today that every eight seconds a child, woman, or man dies of AIDS. Every day, 10,000 people die of AIDS. The world should not sit back and pretend that it does not know that AIDS is still in its early stages, and is getting worse. There have been wars fought by human with the highest sophisticated weapons (i.e. World War 1, 2, Middle East, etc), but AIDS is killing more people than all these wars of the centuries. Has AIDS selected people to destroy? It has gone to the poor, the marginalized, and the dispossessed.
AIDS has gone to young people in their teens, twenties, who are sexually active but do not have accurate information about AIDS which is a sexually transmitted disease. It is gone to women and girls who have been robbed of their voices and power long before AIDS appeared to further complicate their lives. All these above people need to combat AIDS are:
a- education to empower them;
b- money or job to free them;
c- legal rights that can protect them, and
d- Health care that can save their lives.
For more than twenty years, AIDS is gone to the weakest people in the society. And for these same years, the world has stood by, and watched them die.
The Government also has a vital role to play. AIDS is mostly killing those between the ages of 25 and 49. This is the work force of the society. It will in turn affect the economy, and we might be forced to import labour. On the other hand, how are we not sure these migrants are not coming in positive with AIDS? The circle goes on. You don’t fight AIDS by sitting behind the desk. Funny enough, the United States of America that has been on the front fighting HIV/AIDS just lifted ban on migrants that are positive with this virus. How then were they fighting it if they were discriminating? Our Government has a vital role to play.
It hurts to know that of all those vulnerable to AIDS in the world, no single group is more at risk than the women, especially poor women. This really hurts. In some parts of Africa, a third of all pregnant women have HIV/AIDS.
Not only Africa alone is women exposed, more forces put women at risk of AIDS in India. Stupid enough, it is the women who are thrown out of the house when HIV/AIDS epidemic breaks out. The stigma is more on the woman. Whenever women are affected by AIDS, so too are the children. Everyday, 2,000 children are born with HIV.
You cannot compare someone with HIV in Africa to another victim in developed societies. The access to health care differs. Economy situation also counts. Most Government hospitals give free antiretroviral drugs to victims of HIV/AIDS, and then the discrimination comes in.
95% of people with HIV/AIDS do not have access to treatment. Should we sit and fold our arms? What will we tell our next generation to come? Is it that we did not know HIV/AIDS existed, or that we did not care? If you don’t believe and do something about HIV/AIDS now, you definitely will when you contact it.
AIDS in the world is large, complicated, frightening, but the solutions to it are not. The world is losing its war against HIV/AIDS because it chooses to, not because it has to. Everyone can do something about this epidemic. We, humans, and not HIV/AIDS can create the future.
Let churches, mosques, clubs, temples, shrines, schools, hospitals, hotels, parks, gardens, media, etc talk about HIV/AIDS. There is no shame in it. There is even more shame in doing nothing about what is killing our children, men and women. If AIDS does not kill a child, it makes that child an orphan.
We will be judged by GOD for doing nothing about this epidemic. It begins with YOU!
