As Sidi noted in an earlier message and in fact brought to our attentions, 
The Economist's editorial's cogency is apt and says it all albeit it strays a 
bit by shifting focus from the pharmaceutical companies who have been the 
subject of heavy criticism for not putting enough Research and Development 
funds in the fight against Aids/HIV simply because most of the carriers 
cannot afford the expensive drugs that they eventually develop.
I believe Dr. MM Ceesay has something to say. So we should patiently wait for 
his take and then laymen like me can start peddling our logic in to the 
equation.
Mr Buharry many thanks for forwarding the dissenters' angle on Aids. I 
couldn't help but notice so many flaws in their reasoning. But dissenting 
from the mainstream would always be vogue even if it borders on illogicism.
Good morning to y'all
From an early bird -:)
Hamjatta Kanteh


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The battle with AIDS 
 
 
   
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   What can be done 
about AIDS?
   
 
   
   
 
     
  
IT IS hard to absorb the full reality. So far, the global AIDS epidemic is 
thought to have killed 19m people. That is almost twice as many as died in 
the first world war. It has infected another 34m. When they die, as most will 
in the next few years, AIDS will have killed nearly as many as the second 
world war. And the epidemic shows no signs of abating. UNAIDS, the umbrella 
group that co-ordinates the anti-AIDS effort of various UN agencies, reckons 
that 5m people a year are being infected with the human immunodeficiency 
virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. If these people were dying from bullets and 
bombs, they would never be out of the headlines. 

Not for nothing is the slogan of the international AIDS conference that has 
just taken place in Durban “break the silence” (see article). Now that drugs 
can ward off the effects of AIDS in people who can afford them, the issue has 
slid out of sight in the rich world. Seen from that world, AIDS is just 
another disease, like malaria, measles and mumps, which westerners can ignore 
in the knowledge that they are unlikely to catch it and will not die of it 
even if they do. 

Yet AIDS is not just another infection, and comparing its victims with the 
casualty lists of a war is not mere rhetoric. Most diseases pick off young 
children and the elderly. AIDS hits those in the prime of life. The human 
disaster for its victims and their families thus feeds into a social and 
economic disaster for the countries affected. And, with few exceptions, those 
countries are in Africa, a continent that has dire enough economic and social 
problems already. 

Helping those who help themselves 
  

Attitudes are at last starting to change. In January the American government 
upgraded the threat of AIDS from one that merely affects people’s health to 
one that affects the security of nations. James Wolfensohn, president of the 
World Bank, has declared that there is “no limit” to the amount the Bank 
will spend on AIDS, and it announced at the start of the conference that 
$500m is now available. And in May, five large drug companies agreed with 
UNAIDS not only that something must be done, but that they might help. One 
company, Merck, has put $50m of its money where its mouth is. It plans to 
deliver, with the Gates Foundation, an American charity, what it claims will 
be a comprehensive anti-AIDS package for Botswana, the worst-affected country 
of all. 
Such initiatives are welcome, even if they are a drop in the ocean (the World 
Bank estimates that Africa alone may need to spend $2.3 billion a year on the 
disease). But it is rarely possible for outsiders to solve other peoples’ 
problems. AIDS in poor countries will not go away so long as their leaders do 
not give a lead in fighting against it. And Africa’s rulers, with one or two 
shining exceptions, have not yet done so. Some have simply ignored the 
problem. 

Sadly, South Africa, the conference’s host, is a shining bad example. It 
makes angry noises at drug firms, while failing to promote the use of 
medicines such as AZT and nevirapine that are known to be effective at 
preventing the transmission of HIV from mother to child at birth. And Thabo 
Mbeki, the country’s president, who has been listening to a small band of 
scientists with eccentric and discredited opinions, has allowed doubts to 
linger over whether AIDS is actually caused by HIV in the first place. 
Certainly, Africa has some special features. Africans are beset by many 
diseases, each of which serves to weaken people and to make them susceptible 
to the others. And poverty aggravates the problem, as do incessant wars. If 
Africa were as rich and peaceful as Europe or America, AIDS might by now be 
as rare there as elsewhere. But it is not, ultimately, a lack of money that 
causes AIDS. It is a virus. And stopping, or slowing, that virus is not 
impossible, as the example of Uganda, which has reduced its level of 
infection from 14% to 8% over the past decade, shows. 

There are a few simple but important steps that need to be taken. The first 
is to stop being squeamish about sex. AIDS is mainly a sexually transmitted 
disease. That means that people enjoy giving it to each other. Talking about 
sex is taboo in many African cultures. But in places like Uganda, the taboo 
has been overcome. All successful prevention campaigns have worked by 
preaching ways, notably the use of condoms, that reduce the enjoyment of sex 
only slightly. Campaigns that have merely preached abstinence have always 
failed. 

The second idea is to test pregnant women for HIV, and give them AZT or 
nevirapine if they turn out to be infected. This is a cheapish and effective 
use of anti-AIDS drugs, which ought to be near the top of even the poorest 
country’s health budget. Health systems also must be better run so that the 
drugs are properly administered and followed up, to minimise the risk of the 
virus developing resistance. These steps, alone, could save 500,000 infant 
lives a year. 

The other way to help stop the spread of AIDS is to empower women so that 
they can say no. This is terribly difficult in the many patriarchal—ie, 
exploitative—African cultures. Yet women who are educated have a much better 
chance of saying no than women who are not. The no does not have to be no to 
all sex. But it does need to be no to unprotected sex with anybody about 
whose HIV status a woman is unsure. Men too would benefit from better 
education in the dangers and risks attached to AIDS, but education of girls 
is less often attempted and yet even more important, because they are more 
likely to act to slow the spread of the virus. So this must be a third plank 
of an effective anti-AIDS strategy. 

Condoms. Healthy births. And educated women. These will not abolish AIDS. 
That, if it ever happens, will require effective vaccines, and those are 
years away. They might, however, contain it and stop the deaths of many of 
the young, vigorous people whom poor countries need. Africans, and indeed all 
people in poor countries where the disease has a grip, should be shouting out 
about these things. It is that shout that needs to break the silence. No 
amount of cheering from the sidelines by the West will do instead. 


 

 
 


 We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to 
tolerate the intolerant.
Karl Popper  1902-1994

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