|
AIDS in Africa
Wars in Africa killed 200,000 people
in 1998. AIDS killed 2 million people that year in Africa.
AIDS is the leading killer in sub-Saharan Africa.
-
- HIV/AIDS accounts for one-third of
all deaths from infectious disease in Africa.
-
- Sixty-three percent of all HIV/AIDS
infected persons live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Over the past decade 14 million Africans
have died from AIDS, a quarter of them children.
Life expectancy at birth in southern
Africa, which rose from 44 in the early 1950s to 59 in the early
1990s, is set to drop back to 45 in the next 10 years because
of AIDS.
-
- New adult HIV infections in Africa
have numbered more than 1,400,000 each year since 1991. That
is an average of more than 3800 new HIV/AIDS infections per day
in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Roughly 90 percent of all HIV transmission
in Sub-Saharan Africa is by heterosexual sex.
In 1996, 25 African nations spent
an estimated $165 million on AIDS prevention. Current estimates
suggest that between $800 million and $2.5 billion a year is
needed to mount adequate prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa.
HIV and AIDS in Africa pose a far
more serious threat to soldiers than the hazardous nature of
their profession. In most countries, infection rates in the military
from sexually transmitted diseases are generally two to five
times higher than the rates in comparable civilian populations.
People are six times more likely to
contract HIV in a refugee camp than in the general population.
Africa is home to more than 4 million refugees.
|
 |
Africa's Slow Death
|
