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UNITED NATIONS -
14 December 2004
/ www.MaximsNews.com / World AIDS Day came and went December 1.
If only the devastating scourge of HIV/AIDS itself would go as quickly
and easily.
But of course HIV/AIDS is not going to disappear easily or quickly,
neither here in the United States nor
around the world.
Instead, the coming of World AIDS Day brought forth a fresh set of grim
statistics from the United Nations
Program on AIDS and the World Health
Organization mapping the continuing
spread of HIV/AIDS in the United
States and around the world.
More than 39 million people now have HIV/AIDS—a figure that includes
nearly 5 million new cases diagnosed
this year—and more than 3 million
people worldwide have died from it
this year alone.
That number is expected to rise to 5 to 6 million deaths within two
years.
There is some good news.
The world’s governments and scientific community has mobilized against
AIDS with increasing urgency:
funding for the struggle has
increased from $2.1 billion in 2001 to
$6.1 billion this year, and there are
telling success stories.
And yet, the scope of the problem remains staggering.
For example, many believe the development of an anti-AIDS vaccine is at
least a decade away, and that vaginal
microbicides, which women could use to
protect themselves from the risks of
unprotected sex, are at least five
years away.
Furthermore, although the funds devoted to combating HIV/AIDS have risen
sharply, some estimate that, with the
effects of HIV/AIDS deaths
de-populating large swaths of Black
Africa, and the disease approaching
epidemic status in India and China,
with their billion-plus populations,
the world will soon need $20 billion a
year for the fight.
A new disturbing development, according to the UN-WHO report, is that
the pandemic is now increasing at a
faster rate among women than men in
almost every part of the world.
Most often, the women are being infected by either their husbands or
steady partners—who have contracted
the disease either through sex with
other men, or through drug use, or
having sex with prostitutes—rather
than the casual sexual encounters.
In India, for example, where 5.1 million people have HIV, women account
for one-quarter of the new cases.
Such ratios have become common throughout East Asia, and are much higher
in sub-Saharan Africa and the
Caribbean.
The trend is being driven by the fact that in many poor countries and
traditional societies women (and
teenage girls, who are often taken as
sexual partners by older men)
have little power to refuse male
demands for sex, or compel males to
wear condoms during sex, or, finally,
to gain access to treatment once they
are themselves infected.
Ironically, Vishakha N. Desai, president of the Asia Society, in New
York, pointed out in a recent
newspaper column, in many countries
where the disease is significant,
“having a husband is itself a risk
factor for HIV.”
Nor is the United States immune from the trend toward what some are
calling the “feminization” of
HIV/AIDS.
Here, women represent a growing part of the 850,000 to 950,000 people
infected with HIV/AIDS, too.
This has struck African-American females hard because black Americans,
although just 13 percent of the
general population, comprised more
than 51 percent of all HIV/AIDS cases
diagnosed between 2000 and 2003.
A recent report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention found that black women make
up 72 percent of US women with
HIV/AIDS.
The welter of statistics about HIV/AIDS—and the tragic stories of
individuals, communities, and indeed
entire nations behind them—make it
clear that, despite its having been
pushed off the front pages of the
American media, HIV/AIDS lives.
It’s those suffering from it, in the United States and around the
world, who are dying.
Our
recognizing that must stir us to
action.
No
matter where the HIV/AIDS scourge has
rooted itself, the response of the
healthy and those with resources has
to be the same:
More money and more resources
have to be devoted to put in place the
treatment and preventive programs that
will beat back this disease.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the stability of the world and the
future of humanity depend on it.
MarcMorial@MaximsNews.com
*Marc
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