Campus honors World AIDS Day with programs, education

Gestating in individuals for five to 10 years before killing them, AIDS is crippling much of Africa. In Zimbabwe, more than a quarter of adults carry the virus. Currently, 2.8 to 3 million people in South Africa are living with HIV or AIDS, as estimated by the 8th National HIV Survey of Women Attending Antenatal Clinics of the Public Health Service in South Africa (1997).\nIn the western world, meanwhile, the HIV death rate has dropped steeply, thanks to powerful drugs that keep the disease from progressing. These doses must be taken for years, sometimes for life, and they can cost more than $10,000 per patient per year. Yet in many of the hardest-hit African countries, the total per capita health-care budget is less than $10. \nMany people -- in Africa as well as the West -- dismiss this inequality, saying it holds true for many other diseases running rampant in third world countries. Mark Heywood of the AIDS Law Project, which is based in Africa, disagrees. \n"Drugs for the world's major diseases like tuberculosis and malaria have been subsidized by the international community for years," he said. \nWhy is AIDS worse in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world? "Partly because of denial; partly because the virus almost certainly originated here, giving it more time to spread; but largely because Africa was weakened economically and infrastructurally by 500 years of slavery and colonialism," said V.J. Ravishankar, an economist with the World Bank. \n"Having a sexually transmitted disease increases the probability of spreading and contracting HIV, but few Africans get effective treatment because the clinic is too expensive or too far away," said Dr. Labode, a provincial medical officer in Africa.\nUttara Bharath, Program Officer of Johns Hopkins' Zambia Integrated Health Program, said there are some bright spots in this gloomy scenario. \n"The way the Africans have come together and made sense out of their meager resources has offered tremendous hope. Several communities have involved themselves and are desperate to fight this disease."\nIn the industrialized world, powerful drugs called anti-retrovirals have sent AIDS death rates plummeting. People with HIV are running marathons and climbing gorges. In Africa, the reality is a bit different. \n"Many Africans subsist by cultivating small plots of land. When someone in the family is infected with AIDS, other family members have to spend time taking care of them, which means one less farmer on the lands. Following death, the family loses a crucial farm worker," said Dr. Violari, the head pediatrician at Africa's largest hospital, Bharagwanath Hospital in Soweto.\nEven with discounted prices, AIDS treatment would be a tall order. \n"To treat Africa's patients with the accepted AIDS treatment would cost more than $160 billion a year. This exceeds more than half the GDP of many African countries," Ravishankar said.\nDr. Labode agreed that though many doctors have come up with local innovations -- which lead to temporary relief -- without advanced drugs, the virus cannot be defeated. \n"If you get an infection that is strong and virulent, that is the end of the story. The drugs are just too expensive. Though AIDS pneumonia (common killer of AIDS patients) is preventable, it is impossible within our budget."\nAIDS activists don't believe that AZT or 3TC, components of the drug regimen to combat AIDS, have to be as expensive as they presently are, and point to Thailand. \nCatherine Hanssens, AIDS Project Director Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said, "When pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had a fluconazole (generic name for AIDS drug) monopoly in Thailand, the price of a daily dose was $14. \nBut when local companies started putting out their generic versions, the price fell to about 70 cents. Thai companies also make generic AZT; the price of that AIDS drug has fallen by almost three-quarters."\nWhile patent laws are a crucial issue to be resolved in this fight against AIDS so is the resurrection of basic infrastructure to support it. \n"In Africa, only one-third of the population has clean water," Bharath said.\nElhadj Sy of the United Nations AIDS Program believes lobbying for cheap anti-retrovirals is "praiseworthy," but adds, "People in the West don't realize what going hungry is. Attacking the deep-rooted poverty that is disabling most of this country may the critical first step to fighting AIDS"