Are the efforts to control Aids in Africa adequate?

Introduction

The crisis of HIV and AIDS is the largest challenge facing the African continent today. Combating HIV requires a high level of commitment, vision and leadership. The Special Summit of the African Union on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (ATM) has been convened to review progress made in achieving the targets set by Africa's Heads of State and government in the Abuja Summit on Malaria of 2000 and the Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Other Related Infectious Diseases (ORID) of 2001.

The new century has allowed the worlds nations to take a new outlook on the world. It has given them a chance to decide what the pressing issues are to solve, and think of ways to solve them. The UN has set the year 2000, as the year to unite the world's nations in order to make the world one. One of the issues that the world's nations are faced with is the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Even though is can be targeted to one area, this is still a world issue, because of the western worlds role in creating their instability(Luke pp.36-70). Over the past years, especially the most resent ones, much advancement in new drug treatments, and vaccines have been made, but there is the issue of funding.

Discussion

There are many changes that need to be made in order to better the situation in Africa. UN figures say that 12.2 million women and 10.1 million men were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 1999. These numbers need to be decreased, and the new millennium is the world's chance. "If today marks the turning point, it is too late for nearly all the 34.3 million people who are living with HIV and AIDS(Kim YM 514-518).

This is the problem, even though the worlds nations are getting their acts together now, each day 15,000 people are affected with HIV/AIDS, so everyday that goes by, the numbers increase. Out if the 34.3 million people who are living with HIV and AIDS, only 2 percent are able to get access to antiretroviral drugs, or even basic treatments for diseases that are the result from HIV/AIDS. They are already dead,' said one despairing U.S. health official. 'They're just still walking around. (Konde-Lule 89-100)

There are many theories on the start of the Aids crisis, many accredited Scientist believe different things. The most proven theory is the idea that the HIV disease came from chimpanzees. HIV is part of a family or group of viruses called lentiviruses. Lentiviruses other than HIV have been found in a wide range of primates. These other lentiviruses are known collectively as simian viruses "In February 1999 it was announced that a group of researchers from the University of Alabama had studied frozen tissue from a chimpanzee and found that the simian virus it carried was almost identical to HIV-1. The chimpanzee came from a sub-group of chimpanzees known as Pan troglodytes troglodytes, which were once ...