HIV/AIDS in Africa

July 2011

Africa

• There are 1.1 bilion people living in Africa• Sub-Saharan Africa has 836 million people• 307 million people live in the USA• Africa is 3x the land mass size of the US and is made up

of 53 different countries• The bottom half of Africa is considered “sub-Saharan”

Africa• Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 10% of the world’s

population, but carries 66% of the world’s people who are infected with HIV

• Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa are in danger of disappearing – dying – due to the AIDS pandemic

What is HIV/AIDS?

• Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in humans

• A person can have HIV without having AIDS, but HIV will develop into AIDS over time without treatment

• Infected people don’t die of AIDS, they die of AIDS related illness: Tuberculosis, malaria, influenza

• There is no cure for AIDS

How did it begin?

• A descendent of SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) found in west African chimpanzees

• The virus jumped to humans in the 1940’s in Cameroon, West Africa

• The most widely accepted theory is that it entered humans through hunting and eating monkeys

• The oldest confirmed case of HIV was from the Leopoldville in the Congo

And then what happened?

• Mass vaccination programs in the 1960’s reusing needles hundreds of times

• Congo won independence in 1960 - the UN recruited Haitians professionals to rebuild the country - infected Haiti & area

• 1981 first recorded case on US soil• 1986 Uganda had 17.8% infection rate• 2000 Botswana had 37.5% infection rate• 2005 Swaziland lead at 42% infection rate

– Statistics vary depending on the source

AIDS pandemic

• There are 33.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world - 2/3 of them live in sub-Saharan Africa.

• The average life expectancy in Africa is 47 years, but in Swaziland it is 29

• There are approximately 2.5 million children living with HIV today - 2.2 million of them in Africa

• In 2009 2.6 million people were newly infected with HIV - 642,000 of them were children

Death

• On average 274 people die every hour of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa alone

• That means 6,575 people every day• In 2005 2.8 million people died of AIDS

globally - 290,000 of them were children• In 2009 1.3 million people died of AIDS in

sub-Saharan Africa (down from 2.1 million in 2006 due to ARV’s)

How do you contract HIV/AIDS?

• Unprotected sexual activity

• There is no such thing as “safe sex”

• Child birth

• Body fluid/blood to blood transfer

• You can not get it by sharing an apple

How do you NOT get it?

A - Abstain

B - Be faithful

C - Condoms

How did it spread so fast?

1. High risk life of long distance drivers

How did it spread so fast?

2. Profitable mining practices

AIDS has a woman’s face

On average there are 36

young women living with

HIV for every 10 young

men in Africa

(ages 15-49).

Global perspective

• fastest spread of AIDS is in Russia and Ukraine through intervenes drug use

• China has 1 million people infected with HIV/AIDS with limited public knowledge of the disease

• India has 2.4 million infected people

• US has 1 million people living with HIV with 43,000 infections in 2009

Swaziland

• The population of Swaziland is 950,000, down from 1.1 million in 2005

• Swaziland is the #1 AIDS infected country in the world where almost 1 out of 2 people (age 20-30) are infected with HIV/AIDS (46% prevalence rate)

• Swaziland has 15,000+ orphan headed households• August 2004 70,000 orphans• October 2005 132,000 orphans in Swaziland• 2010 200,000 orphans in Swaziland• 2011 – estimated 500,000 OVC’s• 120,000 orphans in 1st and 2nd grade alone

So what does it look like?

Extreme poverty

Children watch their parents die

Orphan

Headed

Households

Children living on the street

9+ year old girls

are in prostitution

so they can eat

No Education

• Majority of Africans only have a grade 4 education

• Orphan headed households can’t possibly afford school fees

• Without education the spread of AIDS will continue to grow

• 75% of girls between the ages of 15-24 do not know that AIDS is sexually transmitted

• 50% of all new HIV infections in 2009 were with girls age 15-24 (2.7 million in Africa)

Children inhale

glue

and

gasoline

to escape

No basic needs

Little access to fresh water

Adults and

children pick

through

garbage cans

to eat

and survive

Children

live

alone

Children starve to death

Every 3 seconds a child dies of starvation/malnutrition

= 30,000 children die every day

= 11 million children die every yearof hunger/malnutrition

Why?

Because there was no one there to provide food for them.

The face of AIDS in Swaziland.

Cindi’s story

Tomorrow

• Look closer at the people around you• Their age• Their health• Their heart

• Pray for Swaziland

• Give thanks for all that the Lord has given you

• Ask Him what He wants you to do next.

www.heartforafrica.org