Coco
07-03-2002, 03:16 PM
Why isn't the world stepping in and providing drugs for AIDS victims in Africa? I wonder if they would react the same if it was an "all white country" like England or another European country!
Here's a clip:
"The international community has not given what it should have," Piot said. "They have considered it a marginal problem."
"It's still an enormous scandal," Piot said, pointing out that just 4 percent of infected people in developing countries have access to the latest antiretroviral drugs, as opposed to about half in North America.
In rich countries, where 500,000 are receiving antiretroviral drugs, 25,000 people died of AIDS last year. In Africa, where only 30,000 are receiving these drugs, 2.2 million died of AIDS.
Although the price of antiretroviral AIDS drugs dropped recently to about $1 a day, Piot said, the cost of treatment had to fall even more to save lives in Africa.
AIDS killed a record 3 million people last year -- 2.2 million in Africa alone -- and HIV infected another 5 million worldwide. The disease, which has killed more than 20 million since its discovery in 1981, has so far created 14 million orphans. Three million of the 40 million people now infected are children under 15 years of age.
AFRICA IN LINE OF FIRE
Although the disease has slipped from the public eye in developed countries after awareness campaigns in the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic is wreaking havoc in sub-Saharan Africa, where 28.5 million people have HIV or AIDS -- more than 70 percent of those infected worldwide.
______________________
We can't change our past, but we can change the way we look at it - into something more positive
Here's a clip:
"The international community has not given what it should have," Piot said. "They have considered it a marginal problem."
"It's still an enormous scandal," Piot said, pointing out that just 4 percent of infected people in developing countries have access to the latest antiretroviral drugs, as opposed to about half in North America.
In rich countries, where 500,000 are receiving antiretroviral drugs, 25,000 people died of AIDS last year. In Africa, where only 30,000 are receiving these drugs, 2.2 million died of AIDS.
Although the price of antiretroviral AIDS drugs dropped recently to about $1 a day, Piot said, the cost of treatment had to fall even more to save lives in Africa.
AIDS killed a record 3 million people last year -- 2.2 million in Africa alone -- and HIV infected another 5 million worldwide. The disease, which has killed more than 20 million since its discovery in 1981, has so far created 14 million orphans. Three million of the 40 million people now infected are children under 15 years of age.
AFRICA IN LINE OF FIRE
Although the disease has slipped from the public eye in developed countries after awareness campaigns in the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic is wreaking havoc in sub-Saharan Africa, where 28.5 million people have HIV or AIDS -- more than 70 percent of those infected worldwide.
______________________
We can't change our past, but we can change the way we look at it - into something more positive