Why Does Africa Have More People with AIDS
Africa has been hit very hard by AIDS. “The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million or more Africans carry HIV.” But the question is, why is there so many on this continent who has AIDS? Africa like many other countries is very poor and many AIDS cases go undiagnosed and untreated because people cannot afford treatments. The facilities are not in very good condition and the care is very bad. Blood transfusion, the reuse of needles, and parental transmission from mother to the fetus of child during pregnancy contributes to the transmission of the virus. The government is not well organized and it provides little solution to the problem of the growing epidemic. The country does not have proper equipment nor the money that is needed to fight the disease. People in Africa and other third world countries have a greater risk for infections because of the lack of education they receive. They cannot read. They cannot afford condoms. They have little to prevent the disease. AIDS programs find it hard to exist due to the lack of funding. A lot of Africans feel very uncomfortable with Western Countries. Therfore, this makes it hard for Western countries, in particularly the U.S., to help Africa out because of this belief (Kerr, v59 n8 p369(2).