Why do so many Africans get Aids?

[Paul of Eugene]

Everybody knows that AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Disease) is running rampant in Africa. An article in the February issue of Discover magazine (see page 12) suggests that sin is involved, but not necessarily the sin you thought.

We are used to the idea that AIDS is transmitted through sexual contact and sharing contaminated needles amoung drug addicts. In the United States, that has indeed been the pattern. But the article suggests that in Africa, infected needles get shared when you least expect it - at the local health clinic. After all, if money is very scarce, why waste all those needles you could profitably use again?

Evidence cited includes HIV positive vaccinated children whose parents do not have the disease and a decline in other sexually transmitted diseases even as HIV infection rates soar. Other ways needles are reused include blood transfusions and IV's.

The article even relays the suggestion that if you are travelling in Africa, it might be best to carry your own syringe and "avoid all the health care you can".

 

[Ben W]

Paul, Not to many people are aware that thousands of people die in Africa of Athsma. Simply because the government does not make treatment available.

Another upsetting fact is that many teenage girls are given AIDS through rape. There is a myth that sleeping with a virgin cures AIDS.

It is detestable that basic medicine is not available in African Countries. Many sick people turn up to clinics to find only birth control supplies, not even basic bandages.

Without Predudice, the Salvation Army and the Seventh Day Adventist Church are doing an amazing work in this nation. I hope many of us remember them finacically if we are able. Or any other Christian Group working to make a difference for that matter.

 

[Deacon]

Scientific American did an article about this fact a year or so ago. They offered many reasons, perhaps the two greatest reasons were their disintegrating social structures and their selfcentered sexual practices.

 

[Roy]

I am not sure if condom use is highly promoted in Africa or not, but I heard a lecture given by a military flight surgeon once. He said that continueing in a wild sex life and using a condom every time is like playing Russian roulette. He said that a high percentage of condoms will prove defective against HIV, because that virus is 100 times smaller than the venerial disease microbe for which condoms were designed to protect against.

For governments to have that information and continue to promote condom use makes a person wonder if genocide is what they consider to be promoting the general welfare.

Roy

 

[Ben W]

Roy, That is true about the size of the AIDS virus, yet what they dont tell you is that condoms have spermicide on them that is designed to kill the virus.

 

[Roy]

I never knew that, Ben. It was several years back when I heard that lecture. Was that the case back then?

Roy

 

[Bible-boy]

Another reason that AIDS spreads to easily in Africa, well Kenya at least, is due to unsafe hair cutting. In Kenya I saw people lined up for a hair cut. They were using a straight razor to shave the people's heads. Sometimes they would cut a person and then move right on to cut the next person's hair. Now if the first guy cut had AIDS and a drop of his blood remains on the razor and they in turn cut the next guy. Well... you get the picture.

Likewise, the social/cultural practice of passing a widow on to the next living male relative has much to do with the problem. If a man has AIDS (say from the hair cut above) he in turn infects his wife. Now this man dies of the disease and his wife is passed to his brother. She in turn infects the brother who in turn infects his own first wife. When this man dies both of the women (if still living) are passed along to some other male relative and the spread of Aids is multiplied. It is a huge problem and the church must step in and educate the people about the disease and how it is transferred. Plus we must teach them not to share multiple wives because the curse of this sin is killing them.