http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... frica_aids

UNAIDS (news - web sites) estimated that nearly $200 billion is needed to save 16 million people from death and 43 million people from becoming infected, but donors have pledged nowhere near that amount.

In its report, "AIDS in Africa," the U.N. agency examines three potential scenarios for the continent in the next 20 years depending on the international community's response.

Researchers determined that even with massive funding and better treatment, the number of Africans who will die from AIDS is likely to top 67 million in the next two decades.

UNAIDS has reported that life expectancy in nine countries has dropped to below 40 because of the disease. There are already 11 million orphans because of AIDS, while 6,500 people are dying each day. In 2004, 3.1 million Africans were newly infected, the agency said.


--xx--


.Insanely intense.



Someone tell me, if one third to a half of Europeans living in the warm air of the summer of 1347 would die by the winter of 1349 from the plague, what total number of people is the table at the link below saying died of the Black Death (Plague):

http://www.hyw.com/books/history/Black_De.htm


The number of people in Africa who have already died and who are dying each day is multiples higher than even the Holocaust. It's insane.


And yet the U.S. Media is more interested in covering Martha Stewarts jail sentence and Michael Jackson's trial. I'd like to see all these media people cover who is doing what to stop what is essentially "the plague", and report on how the US and its assorted corporations could do more. But in a country where the RX and HMO bureaucrats make it difficult for people here to get preventative care, its not hard to guess how difficult it is for agencies overseas to get assistance. I know there are many Many people out there doing alot, but by Holy Mother Earth and all that is sacred, how do any of us put a stop to this horrific loss of life?

It boggles my mind.

I go to work, I come home, I get online, I eat, I sleep, I'm real join the club. And then what?

Its not "new news", but it still Boggles the Mind when you look at the numbers.

I read today also that 1,500 US Lives have been lost in the war in Iraq. I wonder if those 1,500 people were in Africa working to bring in medicine and supplies and food, working to shelter the needy, if their impact would have been more greatly felt and if their time better spent, than securing a region of the world for economic benefit to a small portion of people in the US, a region of the world that has not been secure in over 100 years.

I have to reign in my scope because I have no influecne on this greater sphere of tragedy.

It's all simply tragic.

And then people wonder why I chose to not have children.

c-

On a continent where unprotected sex, rape, questionable medical practices, and drug abuse occurs at a rate thousands of times greater than here, it is going to take much more than money to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic there.

It is going to take cataclysmic changes in culture, socio-economics, gender equality, medicine, and education. And even THAT will take a considerable amount of time to change things.

The AIDS epidemic in Africa is staggering, and as much as the outside world can help with volunteer physicians, mecdication and the like, it will take the Africans themselves to take up the responsibility of changing the very things that are creating this epidemic.

AIDS is not a disease that one can breath in the air or get from not washing one's hands. It is preventable, and so far, prevention is the only means of defeating AIDS.

Prevention means slowing the abuse and marginalization of women, stemming the tide of rape and unprotected sex, modernizing medical practices such as blood transfusions and the like, addressing drug abuse, educating the young, and of course, create a climate of economic and governmental change.

Until the dictators fall, until the wars end, until the medicine is available, until the women are treated as humans, until all are educated, until...etc...etc...etc, things will not change.

If we did not invade Iraq, but instead invaded a country such as Zimbabwe to change the goverment and begin to address AIDS, we would have made a near 0 impact on the epidemic.

It is going to take FAR more than just US intervention, it is going to take change from the ground up in Africa, by Africans, for Africans. A simple invasion or injection of billions of dollars will do little to end the epidemic. This will require baby steps over the next several decades.

I was formulating a response to this thread, only to discover that Kiyo said pretty much said everything I was going to say.

I U

tsunami, that was an amazingly clear and well thought out post and I thank you for it.

And, you're absolutely right, it IS going to take cataclysmic changes in culture, socio-economics, gender equality, medicine, and education, and even THAT will take a considerable amount of time to change things.

How do we affect change? Sending money doesn't seem to help. What can one person do? I know Bono's doing alot, as one small example (and peoples dislike of him aside), but he has financial resources that I don't have, so what can I do?

I feel like the answer is "nothing". And that is really discouraging to me.

Know what I mean?

c-


PS: re: "If we did not invade Iraq, but instead invaded a country such as Zimbabwe to change the goverment and begin to address AIDS, we would have made a near 0 impact on the epidemic." Really? 1,500 people who are now dead from the war in Iraq wouldn't even have made a tiny itty bitty little bit of impact on the epidemic? Not even if the lot of them saved only one life? Did their lives lend themselves to saving 1 life in Iraq? I know those questions are not answerable, but its just really strange to phathom.

It reminds me of a story I read about a woman who was buried alive, and in the last moments before her coffin was to be covered in dirt, they heard her scratching, and she was saved. That woman was pregant, and if I remember the story correctly, was Abraham Lincoln's grandmother (?) or great-grandmother or something. I dont' know if it was a true story, but it really lends itself to that idea of one person's impact, ya know?

Yes, but it is not nothing. What Bono does and what you and I can do as individuals is all going to do a bit of something. Like I said, its going to take baby steps over decades and decades. This isn't something that we can buy off or eliminate militarily, because it is become interwoven with life and culture in Africa. It will take time, but I think a positive result will occur eventually.

It looks bad now, but we cannot just give up or throw money and bullets at it. Our charity and volunteerism helps, but it is going to take the Africans themselves to make that change.

I have faith that they will, but it is going to take time.

I hear you, it's disheartening to see nearly an entire continent constantly ravaged.

Steps are being made every day, but they are baby ones, and it's going to a LONG journey. Outside forces can help, but Africans also have to help themselves.

So they've got AIDS in Africa now?

--PunkDavid

http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/427453.html

I must just be at the point (age) where I'm unofficially passing the torch onto those who still have the energy to be altruistic and optimistic about human nature. I built a barrier up when Reagan and Bush Sr. were in office to shield me from the complete blatent disregard of the citizens of this country and other countries, where shallowness and greed were the status quo. I think with Bush Jr. being around for another four, I've "shut down" emotionally and have resigned myself to another four years of "blocking information" for fear that I might just simply loose my mind and go do some "damage".

But then I read scratches at the surface like this brief article, and it just blows my mind how little changes in the world and it really makes me question what the F is the deal with my life, my neighbors, my city, my state, my country, my countrymen, and the planet at large.

Its so frickin' HUGE.
(Where is the cry-baby emoticon with tears jetting out of it's eyes?)

It reminds me of the Sunday morning I was sitting in a dumpy breakfast place with some friends, and 18 solders came in and sat down for breakfast together, and I just broke down and bawled my head off, and all I could think was "I don't want them to go." I didn't want them to go to Iraq so I can sit here and stuff my face and get into my car and drive somewhere to sit on my ass and enjoy doing nothing with my freedom except think back on how awesome it was to see U2 play Live Aid years before even that. I don't even know how many of those soldiers came back.

And yet, so many years later, the blink of an eye, it seems like not only have things not changed, they are worse. The years that seemed to be at least okay or tolerable, where I had a slight feeling of hope (given to me by U2 and by Bill Clinton, and by Pearl Jam as well), never even happened.


But obviously, this topic and this thread are 100% absolutely NOT about me. So I'll stop.


You both rule. Seriously.

c-

Bad.

--PunkDavid

Have none of you been exposed to the truth!? Everyone knows that AIDS was developed by the U.S. Military Industrial Establishment during the cold war in order to kill people of color. Of course Africans are practically helpless on this issue because its all a huge conspiracy against them. Oh, and another common misconception is that HIV causes AIDS. NOT TRUE. There are many people with HIV that live for years without developing AIDS. And I almost forgot about the pope who intentionally spread AIDS through polio vaccinations in the 60s and 70s. Don't listen to the government sponsored 'scientists', they're polluting your mind with lies!!!

Dropping the debt to sub-Saharan Africa would help, but then you've got the problem of the constant civil wars and associated problems that go with them. One of the biggest problems is that there is a big stigma with AIDS- something akin to "if you have AIDS, then you're an agent of the devil". Contraception education campaigns have been tried for a long time now, and the locals just don't seem to accept it.

It is disheartening, but we still have to go at it. The too hard basket isn't an option.

No amount of money, no amount of human compassion, no amount of media coverage, or American troops, or coalition troops, or anything will ever reverse this place.

I've explained a lot of this in my Africa thread in the General Discussion board. There I stated that this entire region of the globe thrives on two things: drugs and prostitution. Prostitutes are the number one export from Ethiopia. The entire culture thrives around getting "jiggy jiggy" and its entirely at the womens expense. Men go off to work, they get off work, they get themselves a hooker, they pick up a disease, they bring it home to their wives. So it goes.

You can't sit here and say these people are inherently stupid either, incapable of being educated. The people here speak English, French, Somali, and Affar. They are perfectly capable of education, it is the culture, this place, what they have or lack there of that has created such a horrible situation over here.

It is said that 85% of the people in Djibouti city are infected with HIV. On top of that, the country is on the brink of complete starvation. They bury them by the truckloads not far from here to rot in the sun in shallow graves under piles of rocks in the 120 degree sun. It's the same here as it is in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somolia, Sudan...

And as already touched upon, constant, incessant civil wars and cultural diversity don't help matters any. It's well documented that the majority of aid funneled into Africa, for whatever reason, is skimmed and reaches the pockets of only warlords.

I dunno if the 1500 dead would be of much good in regards to helping the AIDS problem. I doubt that any of the personel here have had one iota of impact in regards to that. Could they have been beneficial? Would they have had a positive impact? Certainly, but not in a way that too many of you would ever admit.

I hate to say it, because the people that I've met are by and large so genuinely good. They're awesome and admirable people. But this place is doomed.

Just wait for real pictures.

You don't even know anyone who has the disease, do you.

Who the F cares where it started or how, the issue here is to stop it, stop the deaths and the infection.

Africa's plight aside, I have a very good friend with HIV and AIDS, and I thank you very much for your insensitivity.



c-

Hinny and LittleWing,

Good posts, thank you for both. Much appreciation,

c-

Um, note the at the end of his post. I didn't need it to sense the sarcasm, but apparently you did.

Oh, and I didn't just learn about the AIDS crisis in Africa either, if you couldn't tell from my earlier post.

--PunkDavid

I also intended to point out the problem of the relatively large number of people who, in some way or another try to deny the AIDS crisis for what it is. Several prominent African leaders come to mind. It sure as hell isn't helping the situation to claim its a conspiracy and putting the blame on the white devil, as if its out of their hands or something.

It doesn't help either when these black Africans are being told to rape the white women to be cured of the aids infection.

The argument has been pretty much refuted by Tsu and Little Wing. The real purpose of this thread, as I knew before I even opened it up, was to take a potshot at the Untied States.