With massive media coverage and funding for medications and research the question is being asked. "Is the Bird Flu taking valuable attention and
money away from the AIDS Efforts". Early this month plans were announced for a massive 1 billion dollar injection into the Bird Flu Fight.
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African nations are screaming out for world attention towards the AIDS/HIV epidemic. South Sea nations do not have access to AIDS medications, China
has announced a huge blow out in AIDS cases and Russia too has stated its problems with the AIDS spread within that country.
But the worlds attention at present is focused on one fear, The potential Bird Flu epidemic. Is there room in world society for both issues to be
addressed?
The nations mentioned above are also at the forefront of the Bird Flu "scare". Every dollar spent on the potential pandemic is one less dollar going
to HIV cases and on HIV research. HIV is in danger of being swept away in the Bird Flu storm.
HIV is already an issue that greater society tends to ignore, In Africa millions upon millions are suffering tis horrendous disease with no hope for a
future and daily more an more people being infected with the disease.
New figures released by Papua New Guinea, a small almost forgotten South sea country show that 47,000 people are in fact infected with HIV, that
figure is 1.7 percent of the population. More than 1 person in 100. With the country blaming the churches for refusal to teach safe sex practises this
figure has the potential to skyrocket fast. The conservative attitudes of the people ensure that treatment is often not sought an the disease ignored
with patients ostracized by their own society.
www.abc.net.au...
ne of the problems in the deeply religious Pacific islands has been reluctance on the part of conservative churches - many of which object to the
promotion of condom use - to tackle the issue.
But church officials are starting to come around as the seriousness of the problem becomes clear, he said.
"If they don't do something about it, they will lose their flock. The moral of the story is you have to save lives before you can save souls," he
said.
In Fiji the numbers are around 190 people out of the population of 900000 infected but in Suva only 20 people are receiving medications for the
illness. Medication and treatment is not available in rural areas.
With the worlds attention on the Bird Flu epidemic these figures are unlikely to change much. Money is being injected into Bird Flu and drugs by most
nations in the world likely to be affected by Bird Flu, media attention on the Bird Flu epidemic is rampant. Every death is reported and most cases
that are hospitalized, even animal culls are fell upon and reported, spread far and wide across the world feeds daily. There is rarely a day without
some "Bird Flu News". But what about AIDS and HIV. How much money is these same countries contributing towards the AIDS epidemic? How much
medications for AIDS are the countries stockpiling an buying in for patients who need it now, let alone the future cases. AIDS is here right now an
spreading fast. Bird Flu is a maybe with a lot of factors unable to be ascertained.
Is this because of the nature of the disease? Do people believe the it won't happen to me mentality of AIDS. If people follow a moral plan of safe
sex an no drug use then it is a disease that won't happen to them, therefore easily ignored. While Bird Flu has no bias, no bias against homosexuals,
the sexually active, the sexually unsafe or the drug users of the world. The forgotten ones. Bird Flu takes it's victims whereever it finds it,
healthy happy married adults, small children and grandparents who really don't think about sex that much anymore.
www.alertnet.org...
More than 40 percent of Swaziland's population of one million is HIV positive and the number of new infections is rising, Piot said during a visit to
India's remote northeast.
Piot said South Africa continued to have "horrific" increases in infections. He did not say what the increase in 2005 was over 2004.
Piot, a
microbiologist from Belgium, said some African governments were still in denial more than a decade after the epidemic devastated many
African communities, partly due to taboos about discussing sex.
But AIDS robs young lives too. Many parents have unsuspectingly passed the disease off onto their offspring, ensuring the child a short lifespan in
this world today.
At the rate of progression many cultures face the possibility of being totally wiped out of existence by AIDS, there is no cure, there is no stopping
the disease from marching along in the march of death.
www.abc.net.au...
The emerging battle against bird flu could divert attention and funds away from global efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, the head of the
United Nations' AIDS program says.
A UN summit of world leaders agreed in September to ensure that everyone in the world needing anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to fight HIV/AIDS would get
them by 2010.
"If there is a big bird flu epidemic, it could probably undermine these efforts," Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, said.
Last year, the UN forecast that more than 80 million Africans may die from AIDS by 2025 and HIV infections could soar to 90 million or over 10 per
cent of Africa's population.
Africa has more than 25 million people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, out of a global total of 40 million cases.
These are just the figures we know, they may well be millions upon millions of people in these underdeveloped countries that are positive without
being tested for the disease.
AIDS In Africa Today
www.atsnn.com...
"In my estimation, AIDS is a covert operation run amok that is bigger than any secret operation in US history".
Colonel Jack Kingston
retired Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Pentagon
A few months ago I wrote the above op/ed specifically about the spread of AIDS in Africa today. The figures are astronomical. Bird Flu has killed 60
people worldwide but how many millions has AIDS/HIV killed.
Is it worth it? To inject so much money and resources into a problem that may or may not actually occur and that may or may not be as fatal as media
and authorities have projected, especially when there is millions dying of AIDS. There
are millions catching it everyday.
Today in America a vote was passed 217-215 in the House of Representatives to slash mediaid spending. A reconciliation package that will ensure once
again that the poor and unwanted suffer the most. Horrifying statistics have been released showing the break down of HIV in ethnic minorities. Yet
votes are being passed to up the spending on Bird Flu, which isn't even a given that it will sweep the world in deadly pandemic form.
bbsnews.net...
WASHINGTON - As the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention released startling new statistics about the impact of HIV and AIDS on communities of
color and gay men, the U.S. House of Representatives put the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk today in passing a budget
reconciliation package that would slash Medicaid spending - forcing Americans to rely on the already stretched Ryan White CARE Act.
"Congress and the White House have abandoned their 'compassionate' side to the extremist conservatives," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe
Solmonese. "The health of thousands of men, women and children are threatened when the far right wing unravels the health care safety net."
The razor thin vote of 217-215 early this morning came after new data was released from the CDC detailing racial disparities in infection rates.
African-Americans are eight times more likely and Latinos three times more likely than whites to be diagnosed with the HIV. The data also shows
increasing infection rates among men who have sex with men.
It doesn't mean much to those who can afford treatment and are educated agains tthe spread of the disease. It only means something to the unfortunate
minorities. It means another avenue of help has been ripped out from under them.
Further Reading
www.thisdayonline.com...
ActionAids International says Nigeria, Africa's most populous country has an estimated 3.47million people living with the dreaded Acquired Immuned
Deficiency(AIDS) virus.This represents about 9% of the total number of people living with the virus globally.
Ironically 22million people have died in the 22 years of the epidemic, 17million of them were from Africa. It has also been revealed that about
70% of the adults and 80% of the children living with HIV in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa, representing an infected population of some 28.2
million people.
HRC.og
The razor thin vote of 217-215 early this morning came after new data was released from the CDC detailing racial disparities in infection rates.
African Americans are eight times more likely and Latinos three times more likely than whites to be diagnosed with the HIV. The data also shows
increasing infection rates among men who have sex with men.
Villanovan
Idah Mukuka, a senior counselor at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ), addressed the Villanova community on November 14.
She emotionally pointed out, "At this point in Zambia, if you are not infected [with HIV], you are affected."
What is the future for this epidemic and when does it get called a pandemic like Bird Flu is already being called.
Related News Links:
www.abc.net.au
www.abc.net.au
www.alertnet.org
www.deccanherald.com
Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
www.atsnn.com...
www.atsnn.com...
www.atsnn.com...
www.atsnn.com...
[edit on 20-11-2005 by Mayet]
