[Mb-civic] CBC News - AIDS COULD KILL 80 MILLION AFRICANS BY 2025: UN

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AIDS COULD KILL 80 MILLION AFRICANS BY 2025: UN
WebPosted Fri Mar  4 07:50:06 2005

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia---More than 80 million Africans will likely die of
AIDS by 2025 if the international community doesn't do more soon to stem
the epidemic, a UN report says.

Another 90 million people in Africa – more than one in 10 people on
the continent – could contract HIV infections by then, says the
report released Friday.

More than 25 million Africans already have the virus that causes AIDS.
The disease has caused life expectancy in nine countries on the continent
to drop below 40, according to the UNAIDS report, AIDS in Africa.

"If we don't speed up action, if we don't accelerate what we are doing,
then we're going to get into those type of figures," Peter Piot, the
executive director of UNAIDS, told CBC News.

"What it requires is, first of all, making sure the leaders of Africa are
acting now according to what they say in their speeches."

Many African leaders have promised action to combat AIDS but that hasn't
necessarily translated to the community level, he said.

Piot also said the international community must help African countries.
"Most countries are really too poor to stop this epidemic and that will
lead to a decrease in stability all around the world."



Best-case scenario saves 16M lives Researchers present three possible
case studies of how the AIDS epidemic in Africa could evolve, based on
policy decisions by leaders in Africa and elsewhere.

In their best-case scenario, international donors contribute nearly $200
billion US to an intense education and treatment campaign that would
save 16 million people from dying of AIDS and 43 million others from
getting HIV.

Even with huge donations and better treatment, however, the agency says
more than 67 million Africans are likely to die from AIDS.

The worst-case scenario would see 89 million new cases of the disease in
Africa in two decades.

"If by 2025 millions of African people are still becoming infected with
HIV each year, these scenarios suggest that it will not be because there
was no choice," the report says.

"It will be because, collectively, there was insufficient political will
to change behaviour at all levels from the institution, to the
community, to the individual and halt the forces driving the AIDS
epidemic in Africa."

The report was drawn up by some of the world's leading experts on
HIV and AIDS.

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