Currently
40 million Africans live with HIV / AIDS in Sub-Sahara Africa
Fewer
than 30,000 of them (0.1%) get treated with anti-retroviral drugs
- ARV's
3.4
million newly infected victims in 2001
2.3
million Africans died of AIDS in 2001, equivalent to 6300 a day
Currently
19 million children orphaned by Aids, predicted to climb to 50
million by 2010
Source:
UNAIDS
AIDS - by name of
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome fatal transmissible disease of the
immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV
slowly attacks and destroys the immune system, the body's defense
against infection, leaving an individual vulnerable to a variety of
other infections and certain malignancies that eventually cause death.
AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection, during which time fatal
infections and cancers arise.
AIDS was first reported
in 1981 by investigators in New York and California. Initially most
cases of AIDS in the United States were diagnosed in homosexual men,
who contracted the virus primarily through sexual contact, and in
intravenous drug users, who became infected mainly by sharing
contaminated hypodermic needles. In 1983 French and American
researchers isolated the causative agent, HIV, and by 1985 serological
tests to detect the virus had been developed.
HIV/AIDS spread to
epidemic proportions in the 1980s, particularly in Africa, where the
disease may have originated. Spread was likely facilitated by several
factors, including increasing urbanization and long-distance travel in
Africa, international travel, changing sexual mores, and intravenous
drug use. By 2002 AIDS had claimed more than 25 million lives
worldwide. Approximately 40 million people throughout the world were
infected with HIV. People living in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for
more than 70 percent of all infections, and in some countries of the
region the prevalence of HIV infection of inhabitants exceeded 10
percent of the population. Rates of infection were lower in other
parts of the world, but the epidemic was spreading rapidly in eastern
Europe, India, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the
Caribbean. In the United States the incidence of HIV/AIDS had
stabilized at about 40,000 new infections per year. One-third of all
new cases were women, for whom the primary risk factor was
heterosexual intercourse. In China the government estimated that up to
850,000 people had contracted HIV by 2000—more than half of them
having acquired the virus since 1997.
Transmission -
HIV is transmitted by the direct transfer of bodily fluids, such as
blood and blood products, semen and other genital secretions, or
breast milk, from an infected person to an uninfected person. The
primary means of transmission worldwide is heterosexual intercourse
with an infected individual; the virus can enter the body through the
lining of the vagina, penis, rectum, or mouth. HIV frequently is
spread among intravenous drug users who share needles or syringes.
Prior to the development of screening procedures and heat-treating
techniques that destroy HIV in blood products, transmission also
occurred through contaminated blood products; many people with
haemophilia contracted HIV in this way. Today, the risk of contracting
HIV from a blood transfusion is extremely small. In rare cases
transmission to health care workers may occur by an accidental stick
with a needle used to obtain blood from an infected person. The virus
also can be transmitted across the placenta or through the breast milk
from mother to infant; administration of antiretroviral medications to
both the mother and infant around the time of birth reduces the chance
that the child will be infected with HIV. HIV is not spread by
coughing, sneezing, or casual contact (e.g., shaking hands). HIV is
fragile and cannot survive long outside of the body. Therefore, direct
transfer of bodily fluids is required for transmission. Other sexually
transmitted diseases, such as syphilis, genital herpes, gonorrhoea, and
Chlamydia, increase the risk of contracting HIV through sexual
contact, probably through the genital lesions that they cause.
AIDS is a zoonosis, an
infection that is shared by humans and lower vertebrate animals. A
virus that is genetically similar to HIV has been found in chimpanzees
in western equatorial Africa. Interestingly, this virus, known as
simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), does not readily cause disease in
chimpanzees. The practice of hunting and butchering chimpanzees for
meat may have allowed transmission of the virus to humans, probably in
the first half of the 20th century. A different form of SIV that
infects African green monkeys may have given rise to the virus called
HIV-2. HIV-2 can cause AIDS, but it does so more slowly than HIV-1.
Worldwide, the most common human immunodeficiency virus is HIV-1.
HIV-2 is found mostly in western Africa.
What is AIDS? -
Acquired
Immuno Deficiency Syndrome, a fatal transmissible disease of the immune
system, caused by the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus - HIV.
What is HIV?
Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome was allegedly first recognized in Zaire,
in 1976.
HIV
Positive
If
tested, and it is found that you are HIV-Positive, this
means that your blood stream contains HIV antibodies. All
active and benign microbes that enter your body -
ANTIGENS, will attract attention from your immune system. If
the microbes are foreign bodies, the immune system
will attempt to destroy them. Whether successful
or not, an anti-body will be produced.
How
Does Your Body Fight Infection?
Immunity
- This is the resistance of the body to infection, especially resistance due to
antibodies. Babies have passive, or temporary immunity from some antibodies transferred from their mother’s blood through the placenta. Active immunity involves the formation of antibodies after exposure to an antigen
- bacteria that invade the body during an infection are antigens. The two different kinds of immune response produced by antibodies involve: white blood cells called T-lymphocytes
- produced by the thymus, which produce cells with antibody properties bound to their surface and are responsible for such reactions as graft rejection; B-lymphocytes, which produce cells that release free antibody into the blood.
T-cells
which remember what microbes we have been exposed to, and how best to kill them.
T-cells are the key component of the immune system that is missing in
AIDS.
Auxiliary
T cells infected by the HIV
Leucocyte
- lymphocytes - or white blood cell. A colorless cell found in large numbers in the blood. There are several kinds, all involved in the body’s
defense mechanisms. Granulocytes and monocytes destroy and feed on bacteria and other microorganisms that cause infection
- see also phagocyte. The lymphocytes are involved with the production of
antibodies.
Phagocyte
- A cell that engulfs and then digests particles from its surroundings: this process is called
phagocytosis. In vertebrate animals, phagocytes are a type of white blood cell that protect the body by engulfing bacteria and other foreign particles.
Immunization is the production of immunity by an injection containing antibodies against specific diseases
e.g. tetanus and diphtheria, which provides temporary passive immunity, or by
vaccination, which produces the longer lasting active immunity.
Antibody
- A protein produced by certain white blood cells -
lymphocytes that reacts with a particular foreign particle e.g. a
bacterium, that has entered the body.
The antibody helps to destroy the foreign particle,
known as the antigen. If the same bacteria invade the body in future, many more of the same antibodies are produced, enabling the body to destroy the bacteria very rapidly and so resist infection. This provides the basis of
immunity. Antibodies are also responsible for the rejection of foreign tissue or organ transplants. See also
monoclonal antibody.
Monoclonal antibody
- A type of pure antibody that can be produced artificially in large quantities and used, for example, to distinguish the major blood groups. Mouse lymphocytes producing the required antibody are fused with mouse cancer cells; the resulting hybrid cells multiply rapidly and all produce the same type of antibody as their parent lymphocytes.
Whilst
all this bodily protection sounds wonderful, the problem with AIDS, is
that there is no defense to it, no answer to its attack.
The
Human Immuno-deficiency Virus - HIV slowly attacks and destroys the immune system, the body's
main defense against infection, leaving an individual vulnerable to a variety of other infections and certain malignancies
that would normally easily be fought off. This eventually can cause
death, as the body can no longer cope with the viral and bacterial
onslaught that hit us normally everyday. Simple infections become fatal, and cancers
arise, that the body, and drugs can no longer engage.
So
being HIV-Positive, is the first stage. AIDS is the penultimate stage, and death is always the final stage of
this HIV infection.
What
type of virus is HIV? - A Lentivirus
A
Virus
that infect only vertebrates. There are SIX serogroups of Lentivirus, that we have recognized, and they are
host-specific, that is the virus only effects the
hosts with which they are associated - primates, sheep, goats,
horses, cats, and cattle. The primate lentiviruses are distinguished
by the use of CD4 protein as a receptor with the absence of DU. Some
groups have cross-reactive gag antigens - e.g., the ovine,
caprine ( goat ), and feline lentiviruses. Antibodies to gag
antigens in lions and other large felids indicate the existence of
other viruses related to FIV and the ovine / caprine lentiviruses.
The primate lentiviruses are distinguished
by the use of CD4 protein as a receptor with the absence of DU.
HIV
is a Lentivirus, slow acting, and like all viruses of this type, it attacks the
immune system. Lentiviruses are in turn part of a larger group of
viruses known as, Retroviruses.
The
name 'Lentivirus', from the French, literally means 'slow virus'
because they take such a long time to produce any adverse effects in
the body. Moreover, modern drugs slow this process down even more.
Whilst in Sub-Saharan Africa, the average life of a man, and to some
extent due to AIDS, is only 30 years, soon,
in the Western World, having HIV before it becomes full-blown, will
be over 30 years.
The
Lentivirus has been found in a number of different animals,
including cats, sheep, horses and cattle. However, the most
interesting Lentivirus in terms of the investigation into the
origins of Human HIV is the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus
- SIV , that
affects monkeys and apes.
There are two
types of
the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus:
HIV-1 and HIV-2.
Both types are spread by sexual contact, through blood, blood
products, like semen and
from mother to child, and they appear to cause clinically
indistinguishable AIDS. However, it seems that HIV-2 is less easily
transmitted, and the period between initial infection, and illness is
longer.
Worldwide, the predominant virus is HIV-1, and generally when
people refer to HIV without specifying the type of virus they will
be referring to HIV-1. The relatively uncommon HIV-2 type is
concentrated in West Africa and is rarely found elsewhere.
This
adds intrigue as to whether HIV-1 did come from Africa.
The dominant feature of this first period was silence,
for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was unknown and
transmission was not accompanied by signs or symptoms salient enough
to be noticed. While rare, sporadic case reports of AIDS and sero-archaeological
studies have documented human infections with HIV prior to 1970,
available data suggest that the current pandemic started in the mid-
to late 1970s. By 1980, HIV had spread to at least five continents
(North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Australia). During
this period of silence, spread was unchecked by awareness or any
preventive action and approximately 100,000-300,000 persons may have
been infected.
It is hard, and maybe impossible, to say how many people
have developed
this 'Lentivirus', in the past, whether HIV
or full-blown AIDS. It is hard to calculate how many got AIDS in the
1970s, or indeed in the decades before and after. In fact it is not really known
how long AIDS has had an impact in Africa, where it is believed to
have developed. It could have been around for centuries, but without
the authorities, or even tribe elders, having any real name or knowledge
of what it might be, it was hidden under many
other terms.
And because someone could get infected, and become
HIV positive, and it might be 20 years before they died, who would
connect the two incidents. Also, as
there were possibly so few cases around, and the fact that it is
actually quite hard to catch this virus off a HIV victim, if you
are careful, it was perhaps undeniably very rare.
Nearly 90 million Africans could be
infected by HIV in the next 20 years if more is not done to
combat the epidemic, the UN has warned.
We
believe that this figure could be far higher, and that the
UN has underestimated this prediction because of its embarrassment
in what a defeat this would be for it and other
organizations like WHO.
Furthermore,
who is to say that this epidemic will not decimate 90% of
Africans living on this continent.
It
did not become pandemic across the Western
World, until the eighties, and nobody really cared, because it was perceived
as only a Gay-Disease, until numbers grew
out of all expectations. This is further reflected in the fact
that the Developed World still does not really care about the millions
who have died in Africa.
It is now generally accepted that Human HIV, is a descendant of
the host-specific SIV - the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, that
effects our cousins the apes and our distant cousins the monkeys.
Certain strains of SIVs bear a
very close resemblance to HIV-1 and HIV-2, the two types of HIV that
effect Humankind. Some believe that it was once only a
condition that had an effect on monkeys. This was passed onto the apes
and then eventually onto humans, during the first half of the twentieth
century. Monkey SIV, may have been quite rare
and there may have been only one case of it being passed onto an
ape.
Conceivably,
when a chimpanzee, ate a monkey it had captured, he inadvertently
picked up a strain that gave him SIV. This was then passed onto a
human, through some erroneous contact that we can only imagine when
and where. It may also have been through the human or humans, hunting
and eating
the ape.
Mad
Cow Disease
Cross
species contamination is generally quite rare. Take the sheep for
example. Sheep have had, Scrapie, a degenerative disease
affecting the central nervous system, for about 250 years. Scrapie
is caused through an organic mechanical process, the Prion,
and is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy - TSE, that
affects sheep and is in the same category of diseases as the
so-called Mad Cow Disease - BSE, in cattle.
There
is no real evidence linking sheep Scrapie to BSE, but sheep Scrapie
never posed any human health risk, until ground sheep remains were
fed to cattle. Cattle caught BSE and in turn, some believe,
gave humans CJD, the human equivalent. It took the cow, as some
catalyst, before humans contracted the human form of Scrapie.
Prions
are not alive in the same way a bacteria or virus. They cannot be
destroyed through normal sterilization,
they have to be burnt and medical instruments have to be disposed
of, as they cannot be used again.
So
how many of us have Prions inside
us, after eating BSE contaminated meat? Are we all now Prion
Positive, awaiting yet another incredulous outbreak of CJD, sometime
in the future.
It
took the UK government 10 years, and twelve billion dollars to
eradicate BSE, what about CJD?
Blood
cells
There
are a number of different cell types in circulation in the blood stream.
Here's a quick review:
Red
cells carry oxygen to the cells of the body. They are
essentially bags of hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying molecule. Hemoglobin
binds oxygen to iron atoms, which give the hemoglobin and thus the cells
their distinctive red color.
Polymorphonuclear
cells, or "polys" for short, fight bacterial
infections by engulfing bacteria and digesting them. They form PUS and
are the chief ingredient of an abscess.
Lymphocytes are the virus killers. There are two types of these:
T-cells which remember what germs we've been exposed to and how to kill them.
T-cells are the key component of the immune system that is missing in
AIDS.
B-cells that secrete the actual antibodies that attach to viruses and bacteria
and identify them as things to be destroyed - rather like tagging the
target with a laser so that the smart bomb will home in and blast the
target.
Monocytes
are cells that are related to lymphocytes but have a killing and
cleaning function. They cruise through the tissues of the body cleaning
up debris and killing any bacteria they find. They are often increased
in viral infections - a reassuring finding that your doctor may note on
your child's blood count.
Eosinophils
are cells which are strongly related to allergy and the recognition of
foreign things in the body like parasites.
Basophils
are cells that are also part of the allergy and parasite recognition
system.
Platelets
are the cells that plug leaks in the vascular system, the clotting
cells.
Prion
- An an infectious
protein particle called a Prion or Prion Protein. These prions appear to
have the ability to recruit other normal proteins and induce them to
alter their structure to become more prions, that act as vehicles of
infection. This is quite different from other infectious diseases,
commonly caused by bacteria or viruses. Prions are not a genetic.
Read this and weep. Over
the last few months we have come to a frightening conclusion.
The Sahara Supposition
If you click onto the
banner-link above, it will
take you to this page - the Sahara Supposition Page. The Sahara Supposition started life
around 1995 as several things, but mainly a scheme to Terraform the Sahara
Desert; read the webpage for yourself, but read this first.
In 2051, the world's global environment
will start to change without fear of God or Man. The crux of it is that by
around 2080, due to Global Warming, melting ice-caps and fresh water
bringing the Gulf Stream to a standstill, our Northern Hemisphere, will be thrust
into the biggest Ice-Age for 20,000 years. Millions of people who live in
the North of our planet, that is, Northern USA, Canada, Northern Europe,
will be killed, or made homeless at best.
Today, the people of Africa, our biggest
continent, are dying in numbers that are unbelievable, through Starvation, AIDS, Malaria, many other diseases, dirty water, wars, homicide,
TB
and genocide.
The So-called civilized world bangs many
drums to try to prove that it is helping to change this Extinction Level
Event, but it is all a
farce.
Let us imagine, if
we can, how poignant it would be,
if say in one million years time, some advanced alien culture was to visit
this third rock from the Sun. Simply to explore a most insignificant solar
system to find that there was scarcely, any actual evidence that the
primitive human animal had ever existed.
Live 8, may have raised great awareness
and $200 million. But this is nothing in the scheme of monetarism. War
engulfs more every second.
In 1972, the USA declared that it was
spending $24 million each and every hour on the Vietnam War. What is that in
today's money? A Live 8 concert every hour; 8,760 every year, for how
many years?
In less than a century, many millions of
people who live in our Northern Hemisphere, will need somewhere to live,
they will have, Africa.
Parts of the USA, most of the UK and
Europe will be covered in ice that could be a kilometre thick.
Great cities like Chicago, New York,
London, Moscow, will be gone, sealed in some frozen stasis for maybe another
century or millennium. Sadly this will make recent Hurricane strikes look
like a breeze.
By then most native Africans will be dead
and for the first time in Earth's history, Africa will be a continent
dominated by white races.
Just a few miles south of
England there is a very small island called the Isle of Wight. It is
said that the whole population of the Earth could stand on this island
at the same time.
Using England's
Population Density, well over 50 Billion People could live in Africa,
and no doubt one day they will, and they will be mostly white.
Besides
death, chronic malnutrition also causes impaired vision, listlessness,
stunted growth and greatly increased susceptibility to disease. Severely
malnourished people are unable to function at even a basic level.
United
Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
AIDS / HIV
Gaetan
Dugas; Patient Zero
As
we have said, It is hard, and maybe impossible, to say how many people
have developed this slow working virus, in past history, whether HIV
or full-blown AIDS. But how did it spread so quickly around the world,
after being so constrained for so long. It may well have lied
relatively dormant for centuries, but then during the twentieth
century the planet grew smaller everyday; and since the fifties
world travel is now available to many millions.
Gaetan
Dugas; Patient Zero February 1953 – March 1984
But
one incident that did not help stop the spread out of Africa, was allegedly
due to a French Canadian Air-Steward, Gaetan
Dugas; Patient Zero. He apparently caught the disease in West Africa
on an overnight stay. It is now infamy that he contracted it quite
innocently by having Gay Sex, with a Black man. He had never seen
him before, because these were promiscuous times in the late
seventies early eighties when most STD's had been supposedly beaten
by penicillin, and Gay Sex was rife, and it was not unusual for a
Gay man to have several different sexual encounters each week, all
unprotected. This Frenchman, the
charming and very handsome Gaetan
Dugas, was widely known across the Gay community of North America.
There were actually a few cases, not attributed to him, that could
have been AIDS / HIV, in North America before Gaetan
Dugas.
But
it was in the summer of 1980 that Dugas began to notice a strange
rash and peculiar purple spots on his face and body. The doctors
soon realized that he had Kaposi's Sarcoma [ KS ], a type of skin
cancer that affected internal organs, and was later associated with
AIDS. It followed that Kaposi's Sarcoma was only seen in homosexual
men, so it was dubbed the 'gay cancer'. This did not stop the
promiscuous Dugas, he continued to travel to San Francisco, Los
Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto, and New York, frequenting numerous
places, to spread the word; AIDS. This made AIDS become known
as the Gay Disease, especially as it is far more prevalent if
partners engage in anal-sex.
Kaposi's Sarcoma,
was a rare form of relatively benign cancer
that tended to occur in older people. But by March 1981 at least eight
cases of a more aggressive form of KS had occurred amongst young Gay
men in New York. Equally, there was an erroneous increase in both California
and New York, in the number of cases of a rare lung infection
Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia - PCP. It had started, but it was painfully
soon realised that this was not The Gay Disease, as Heterosexuals
victims soon mounted to overtake Gay numbers.
This
part of the epidemic does reflect the many thousands that got HIV /
AIDS as drug addicts sharing needles, or the innocents that acquired
the virus from blood transfusions, Factor 8 and bone marrow
transplants.
Africa
In
Africa, the most prominent problem in the new millennium, has become
an epidemic. Early on, scientists set out to discover more about
the occurrence of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. This research resulted in 26 patients with AIDS being identified in Kigali, Rwanda,
and 38 patients identified in Kinshasa, Zaire.
The Rwandan study
concluded that, - . . . an association of an urban environment, a
relatively high income, and heterosexual promiscuity could be a risk
factor for AIDS in Africa.
Overtime
this spread throughout all classes of those who would make
up promiscuous Africa. It now affects the whole structure of
their way of life, and is a vicious circle that they will
find hard to get off.
Safe-Sex
Today,
a recent study has shown that AIDS is killing an African every 10
seconds. This is due to many reasons. Lack of drugs, education,
false-hope,
but ignorance is perhaps the main reason. AIDS is a mainly a sexually
transmitted disease - STD, but infection can be reduced by 97% if a condom
is worn during sex.
This is what safe-sex is, wearing a condom. This
not only protects the male from catching any virus, but also, and
more importantly, it protects the female, and stops her from becoming
a carrier of this virus.
An infected
and unprotected man will introduce
his sperm into the woman, and leave the AIDS virus inside her, where
it has a far greater chance to contaminate her over time. She will
then be a time bomb, passing on AIDS to most partners she may have
in the future. In African villages where money is scarce, women are
sometimes forced to become prostitutes to earn a few pennies, in an
area where 50% of all inhabitants have HIV. One prostitute in a
large town who knew she was HIV, had up to ten unprotected,
customers each day, ironically to earn the money to cure herself.
These Johns then went home to their wives and girlfriends and spread
the disease even further.
However, the Roman Catholic Church forbids the wearing of condoms for any reason as this is against God's wish. In villages and towns that are rife with AIDS, Catholic Priests preach and brainwash young Africans, that it is blasphemous to protect yourself during sex. Condoms are generally free and easily available, donated by the West. Moreover, young male Africans believe it is not an African thing to wear protection, as they must feel flesh on flesh, when with a woman. Fuelled by cheap alcohol, whilst they know that the odds of catching AIDS or some STD are high, they do not care, grabbing some small moment of pleasure in this sad continent.
Also reported, young men who know that they have HIV, to them a good night out is to get drunk, and find a young girl, and have unprotected sex with her, knowing that there will be a high she also will become HIV positive. Under such a regime it is no wonder that soon 50 million people in Africa will be HIV or be dying of AIDS.
However,
the Roman Catholic Church forbids the wearing of condoms for any
reason as this is against God's wish. In villages and towns that are
rife with AIDS, Catholic Priests preach and brainwash young
Africans, that it is blasphemous to protect yourself during sex. Condoms
are generally free and easily available, donated by the West.
Moreover, young male Africans believe it is not an African thing to wear
protection, as they must feel flesh on flesh, when with a woman.
Fuelled by cheap alcohol, whilst they know that the odds of catching
AIDS or some STD are high, they do not care, grabbing some small
moment of pleasure, on a sad continent were pleasures are few.
Also
reported, young men who know that they have HIV, to them a good
night out is to get drunk, and find a young girl, and have unprotected
sex with her, knowing that there will be a high she also will become
HIV positive. Under such a regime it is no wonder that soon 50
million people in Africa will be HIV or be dying of AIDS.
In
some countries it is a serious offence for a person who has HIV /
AIDS, or any disease for that matter, to deliberately infect another
without their knowledge. A charge of Manslaughter or even Murder
could be raised.
At
least 130 people, around 60 of them gay men, have been prosecuted
for transmitting HIV in Europe, a new study has found.
A
study of HIV positive patients in California has found that those
taking HIV medication actually had less unprotected sex than people
not taking it.
Never
have unprotected sex. You do not know your partner, trust us!
For
the foreseeable future AIDS and HIV will continue to claim a
devastating toll in sub-Sahara Africa, with some countries eventually
having an HIV infection rate close to 50%, a statistic that can only
grow and grow, and grow.
For
over twenty years most responses to this plague have been to treat
it as just a medical issue, or a political issue, sometimes as a
social-behavior issue, which are all true. But few efforts have
focused on the human aspect; of allowing these developing countries
to develop, without the burden of having to have a medical, political
or social stigma, that will never go away and allow them to get off
the first rung.
The
world cannot build enough hospitals to care for all its patients,
nor wait for a some miracle. It can be and only will be, Africans themselves;
Africans no matter where they were born to put AIDS, and hunger
behind them. It cannot always be blamed onto the wicked West.
Most
African states were once managed or colonized by European countries,
relatively speaking these African colonies were rich countries, and
the people very well fed, with all the attributes good government
could give. But in the sixties, they all wanted independence, to be free from
the shackles of the tyrants that had held them captive. Today they reap
the benefits of their self government.
The World Health Organisation -
WHO, has announced that by the end of mid-summer 2005 around one
million people worldwide – one in six of those who need it - will be
on HIV treatment. But this will not reach the WHO’s target of
last year by a mile, when it launched the '3 by 5' project. This
aimed to have 3 million by end of 2005.
However the initiative has
encouraged sharp increases in the number of people on HIV drugs in
the countries that need it most. Treatment in Africa has increased
60% and in Asia by 50%, during the '3 by 5' campaign, meaning that
one in nine and one in seven people who need it respectively, are on
a HIV regime. In Africa, about four in 10 of Ugandans who need help
get it, while in neighboring Tanzania it is only one in 40.
We found
your videos quite interesting, but
really much the same as previous
documentaries.
What
stood out is your complete disregard to
the Catholic Church's stance on
contraception, especially condoms. How
can we in the west inform our people
that the best protection against AIDS /
HIV is safe-sex, via a condom, but then
allow the Catholic Church to not only
ban these items, but to preach to the
people of Africa that it is against
God's will, and an evil act to use
condoms.
Documentaries in the UK, clearly
showed, that many young African men,
did not want to use a condom based on
religious teachings, and for those who
already had HIV, devilment. Many young
men who were already infected,
deliberately went out to infect any
passing sexual partner they came
across.
Moreover, a huge percentage of the
victims in your film could have been
saved had it not been for the
deliberate avoidance of safe-sex. The
women who had died in your film, died
because they had been infected by their
husbands, who in turn had caught the
infection from another woman outside of
the marriage.
There
would seem to be a simple solution
here, but for the teachings of God.
Pictures Below
