AIDS epidemic in Africa worsens

Bahla Nabwegki is an immigrant who earns a dollar a day. He bought a one-pedaled bicycle with his seven-dollar weekly pay. Another two dollars went to reinforce its frame. After he removed the chain, Nabwegki was ready to use his bicycle, not so much for cycling, but as a trolley for carrying as much as 250 kilograms of coal across distances of 30 to 40 miles. \nThat's tough work, especially since Nabwegki is HIV positive and the medicine that combats AIDS would cost Nabwegki $1,500 a month, so he doesn't consider the idea of leaving his job. \nHe can be seen either as an HIV patient or a symptom of a larger epidemic of poverty, poor employment and terrible human conditions. In most developed countries, one man carrying 250 kilograms of coal more than 40 miles would have created a furor.\nEstimates by the World Health Organization and UNAIDS, a United Nations program, project there will be about 5.3 million new cases of HIV infection this year -- including 600,000 children under 15 -- and 3 million people will die from AIDS. Among the worst hit: Africa.\nSub-Saharan Africa has taken a disproportionate toll and continues to be the worst hit region, with 72 percent of the infections and 80 percent of the deaths in the past year. The minister of public health in South Africa has estimated that 1,500 persons are being infected daily. In Botswana, the situation is worse, where 36 out of every 100 adults are infected with the virus. \nE. Preston-Whyte's novel, "Survival Sex or the Culture of Sex Work in South Africa," published in the AIDS Bulletin in 1996 concluded that women are made to work as commercial sex workers to supplement income. This has led to very high rates of infection: In one area of Johannesburg, an estimated 80 percent of sex workers who took part in a survey were found to have HIV. \nDr. Catherine Campbell, a professor at the London School of Economics wrote, "sex with its associations of comfort and intimacy (even in the impersonal contact with commercial sex workers) serves as a comfort to workers in the face of fears and stresses, when they are miles away from their homes." \nThis has a dramatic effect on the lives of children, Labode said. \n"As the number of orphans grows, increasing numbers of children are at risk indirectly through lost educational opportunities and more directly by forcing them to survive in high-risk situations on the street. The children are left uneducated. And, poor educational opportunities for people living on the streets limits their access to information and services."\nExperts believe that while poverty increases a person's vulnerability to AIDS, AIDS intensifies poverty once infected, causing a spiral effect. \nMark Heywood, the head of the AIDS Law Project said, "Breadwinners and future breadwinners die resulting in a loss of income to a family. Gender roles are reinforced, with the woman continuing to stay at home, taking care of the ill. Poverty grows exponentially in this manner -- the mortality of a coming generation is affected drastically in this way, with the standard of living plummeting sharply." \nIn a population as painfully poor as most of sub-Saharan Africa the presence of a disease seems just another problem they must combat, said Uttara Bharath, program officer of Johns Hopkins' Zambia Integrated Health Program.\n"One of the reasons for the failure of the governments' national AIDS prevention plan to date has been that amongst people most at risk the perceived dangers related to HIV infection are considered less pressing than the day-to-day threats that face poor people," she said. "Therefore, being HIV positive becomes just another burden in an endless struggle for survival"