Create a 6 page essay paper that discusses AIDS in Africa.Download file to see previous pages... According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2012), AIDS is the number one killer disease in Africa

Create a 6 page essay paper that discusses AIDS in Africa.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2012), AIDS is the number one killer disease in African region. Mortality among the children was very high at 14,620,000 and at adults also very high at 49,343,000 in 2001. Figure below shows percentage of HIV prevalence among 15-24 year olds in selected sub-Saharan African countries in 2001-2003. As shown, there is higher incidence of HIV cases in women. This becomes a problem because of the high probability of transmitting the disease to the babies during pregnancy. WHO (2012) found out that due to numerous infectious diseases plaguing Africa, economic development is hard to achieve, thus, the African region lags behind other region in terms of human development. The abovementioned report also stated that “72% of deaths in the African region are caused by communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, respiratory infections, other infectious diseases, and complications of pregnancy and childbirth”. This is coupled by other socio-economic problems of the region, extreme poverty, and lack of education. It is regrettable but these deaths are preventable. Solution to these problems has become a big challenge to the African States in particular, and to the world in general. The origin of the problem According to Avert.org (2011), AIDS started with chimpanzees. This report stated that conclusive evidence based on a comprehensive 10 year study found a strain of Simian Immuno deficiency virus in a number of chimpanzees in Cameroon. It was a viral ancestor of HIV that eventually caused AIDS in humans. There was no other strain of the same kind found in chimpanzees from other parts of the world, so it was concluded that the strain came from Africa. Same source reported an unconfirmed rumor that HIV was brought by an infected individual who travelled through the river from Cameroon to Congo, and spread it through sexual network. As speculated in Avert.org (2011), HIV was carried in the Eastern part of Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda) in 1979 and reached the epidemic level in early 1980s. It was later on established that HIV in West Africa is due to “labor migration, high ratio of men in the urban population, low status of women, lack of circumcision, and the prevalence of the highly transmitted disease”. that sex workers played a big part of its transmittal in East Africa”, and that about 85% of sex workers in Nairobi were affected with AIDS in 1986 (Avert.org, 2011). The first African country to be heavily affected with AIDS was Uganda in 1980s. It further spread into other areas sparing the Western Equatorial parts simply because the distance and difficulty in travelling made it uneasy for sexual network to penetrate. Spread of disease was facilitated by war between tribes, truck drivers, soldiers, migrants, traders, and military personnel who engaged with sex trades and spread it on their travel routes. In the early 1980s, people were not aware of HIV and thought of it only as an infectious virus. Because of lack of information about HIV, people were unaware that they were infected by the virus. The initial reaction of the government was to disclaim and hide it. Even the World Health Organization maintained that AIDS in Africa was not their first concern during its initial days but then admitted their mistake afterwards (Avert.org, 2011).