Among other things, the beginning of the year is an appropriate time to do some counting, to make an assessment – are we doing better or worse than we were at this time last year?
A month ago, a small story in the New York Times about AIDS fit that category. AIDS is not the hot news item in the U.S. it was a decade ago. There’s still no cure, but by swallowing the right combination of pills, people with AIDS seem able to arrest the disease’s progression and relieve its symptoms.
That, plus a general AIDS awareness and acceptance of safe sex practices, has created an impression that AIDS is not that important an issue anymore. But the story I saw in the Times was not on the national news page, it was on an international page. In much of the world, and certainly in the less-developed world, AIDS is by no means a receding issue. The World Health Organization and the United Nations announced late last year that the number of people infected with HIV worldwide grew by 10 percent in 1998. There are now about 33 and a half million HIV-positive people on earth. That’s a bit more than the total population of Canada. Health officials are describing the AIDS situation as “pandemic.”
As is often the case with pandemics, those suffering the worst effects are those with the least resistance and the least responsibility. Years of progress in children’s health in developing countries is being wiped out. Children are being made orphans by AIDS – one estimate predicts there will be 40 million AIDS orphans by 2020. Some children are born
with HIV; some babies born HIV-free are being infected by breast milk from their mothers.
While the AIDS crisis is bad enough for infants, the age group hit hardest is 10-to-24-year-olds. These young people in developing countries will determine the fate of many of us in the new millennium. Consider their situation: they have been born into lives of poverty, hunger and often, political unrest. They may themselves already be orphans to AIDS. In eight African countries, more than 25 percent of children under 15 have lost at least one parent to AIDS. In Africa, as anywhere else, the loss of a parent makes it harder for the family to stay together, to have enough food, to see a doctor, to stay in school. In many developing countries, children, some as young as 10 years old, are conscripted into the military.
While AIDS is becoming pandemic in the developing world, its presence is particularly pronounced among the armies of those countries, where sexually-transmitted diseases of all stripes find a hospitable environment. The very fact that a fatal disease is coursing through various armies will be enough to touch off conflict in already-unstable regions around the world. The health crisis will create a military crisis and the military crisis will create an economic crisis and if you don’t think the AIDS crisis in the developing world will affect you – no matter where you’re sitting as you read to this – you’re wrong.
What is needed immediately, is medicine for those already sick and prevention techniques for those in danger of infection. Right now, U.S. foreign aid consists of nuclear power and satellite dishes, when what is needed is medicine. Meanwhile, America is years behind in its United Nations dues, in part because Jesse Helms is afraid some of that money may go toward buying a condom for somebody, somewhere. Well, that condom may just save someone’s life, and in the domino chain of events, Senator Helms, the life you save may be your own.
The Life You Save
Among other things, the beginning of the year is an appropriate time to do some counting, to make an assessment – are we doing better or worse than we were at this time last year?
A month ago, a small story in the New York Times about AIDS fit that category. AIDS is not the hot news item in the U.S. it was a decade ago. There’s still no cure, but by swallowing the right combination of pills, people with AIDS seem able to arrest the disease’s progression and relieve its symptoms.
That, plus a general AIDS awareness and acceptance of safe sex practices, has created an impression that AIDS is not that important an issue anymore. But the story I saw in the Times was not on the national news page, it was on an international page. In much of the world, and certainly in the less-developed world, AIDS is by no means a receding issue. The World Health Organization and the United Nations announced late last year that the number of people infected with HIV worldwide grew by 10 percent in 1998. There are now about 33 and a half million HIV-positive people on earth. That’s a bit more than the total population of Canada. Health officials are describing the AIDS situation as “pandemic.”
As is often the case with pandemics, those suffering the worst effects are those with the least resistance and the least responsibility. Years of progress in children’s health in developing countries is being wiped out. Children are being made orphans by AIDS – one estimate predicts there will be 40 million AIDS orphans by 2020. Some children are born
with HIV; some babies born HIV-free are being infected by breast milk from their mothers.
While the AIDS crisis is bad enough for infants, the age group hit hardest is 10-to-24-year-olds. These young people in developing countries will determine the fate of many of us in the new millennium. Consider their situation: they have been born into lives of poverty, hunger and often, political unrest. They may themselves already be orphans to AIDS. In eight African countries, more than 25 percent of children under 15 have lost at least one parent to AIDS. In Africa, as anywhere else, the loss of a parent makes it harder for the family to stay together, to have enough food, to see a doctor, to stay in school. In many developing countries, children, some as young as 10 years old, are conscripted into the military.
While AIDS is becoming pandemic in the developing world, its presence is particularly pronounced among the armies of those countries, where sexually-transmitted diseases of all stripes find a hospitable environment. The very fact that a fatal disease is coursing through various armies will be enough to touch off conflict in already-unstable regions around the world. The health crisis will create a military crisis and the military crisis will create an economic crisis and if you don’t think the AIDS crisis in the developing world will affect you – no matter where you’re sitting as you read to this – you’re wrong.
What is needed immediately, is medicine for those already sick and prevention techniques for those in danger of infection. Right now, U.S. foreign aid consists of nuclear power and satellite dishes, when what is needed is medicine. Meanwhile, America is years behind in its United Nations dues, in part because Jesse Helms is afraid some of that money may go toward buying a condom for somebody, somewhere. Well, that condom may just save someone’s life, and in the domino chain of events, Senator Helms, the life you save may be your own.