AIDS in Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest Continent. It covers 5.9% of the planets total surface area, and with more than 840,000,000 people it accounts for more than 12% of the world's population. And while in many territories; most notably Angola, Sudan, and Equatorial Guinea its economy is rapidly improving; Africa is still the world's poorest inhabited continent, and a continent in crisis.

Sub-Saharan Africa is quite possibly the world's poorest place. Seventy percent of its people live on less than $2 a day. 200 million go hungry every day. This year at least a million Africans, most of them young children, will die of malaria and two million will die of AIDS. Africa has been hit harder by the HIV/AIDS virus than any other region of the world. More than 17 million Africans have died from AIDS and another 25 million are infected with the HIV virus, approximately 1.9 million of whom are children. Every day in Africa HIV/AIDS kills 6,600 people, and 8,800 people are infected with the HIV virus. Former U.S.

President Bill Clinton recently urged African governments to encourage people to take voluntary AIDS tests, saying it was the only way that newly available drugs would have an impact on the epidemic. "People living with HIV and AIDS can live a normal life if they go for testing to know their status. We'll bring the medicine and it does not matter at what cost but how many lives will be saved and changed," Clinton said. Clinton's foundation has been working to make cheaper anti-retro-viral (ARV) AIDS drugs available in Africa, and he has in the past voiced support for mandatory HIV/AIDS tests in countries with high infection rates. The Clinton Foundation has been able to dramatically lower the cost of HIV/AIDS medication and tests, has helped countries scale up treatment, and has begun to bring quality health care to the world's children and the under served in rural areas.

The Clinton Foundation is not alone in its fund raising efforts to stem the tied of the epidemic; many other international organizations have contributed significantly. Most notably perhaps is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM).

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an independent public-private partnership that was first proposed by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, back in 2001. Its aim is to raise funds and pool money from governments, businesses and individuals around the world, and channel it into grant programs to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Famed rock star and AIDS activist Bono has partnered with GFATM with his Product RED. Product RED is an initiative that was launched by the singer earlier this year. Its aim is to engage various commercial partners by getting them to theme some of their products with special Global Fund 'RED' branding. A proportion of the proceeds from sales of these items then go to the Global Fund. So far, well known members of the clothing and footwear industry, Armani, GAP and Converse have all signed up to the plan, and American Express has launched a RED credit card that donates 1% of the value of all purchases to the Fund. At a recent meeting with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as part of the continuing Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, President Clinton had this to say, that people have to "… realize that this is nothing to be ashamed of, but a problem to be addressed and to provide medicine at the lowest cost available anywhere in the world".

Mr. Clinton's wisdom and understanding of the crisis goes beyond the moral obligation we all should feel to help strictly on humanitarian grounds. As a former World Leader he understands that the United States and other rich nations have economic and security reasons to bring and end to this destabilizing epidemic. As seen in Afghanistan and now every day in Iraq, unstable states can become breeding grounds for terrorists. Acting now to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, is not only the moral thing to do - our own future may depend on it.