AIDS

This from the Washington Post this morning reports that there are an estimated 750,000 Ethiopian children orphaned due to AIDS. It reads, in part:

"I am dying," she told Addis Tamrat, the manager at Hope for Children International. "I want my child here at your place. He is too sick and no relatives will take him in."

The baby, 15-month-old Sintayenu, had a purple lesion on his forehead. He had recently come down with pneumonia, and weight had been pouring off his body. He had not been tested for HIV, but Astake knew, and so did her older son, who is 6.

"He's been kicking the baby, saying he doesn't want to catch the virus from him and get sick and die like me," Astake said.

The fate of Astake and her infant son are part of a quiet calamity affecting hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian mothers and children. Although the country's overall infection rate of 4.4 percent for HIV/AIDS is far lower than those in countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, it has the highest rate of HIV-infected children in the world, according to a United Nations report issued in December. More than 200,000 Ethiopian children are living with HIV/AIDS, the U.N. report said. Every day, 70 babies are born from HIV infected mothers, and the Ministry of Health estimates that 750,000 children are without parents because of AIDS.

This from the New York Times this morning reports that there was a 57 percent rise in AIDS cases in South Africa between the years 1997 and 2003. It reads, in part:

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 18 - In an implicit but devastating account of the havoc AIDS is causing here, South Africa's government reported Friday that annual deaths increased 57 percent from 1997 to 2003, with common AIDS-related diseases like tuberculosis and pneumonia fueling much of the rise.
The increase in mortality spanned all age groups, but was most pronounced among those between ages 15 and 49, where deaths more than doubled. Working-age adults are more sexually active than the rest of the population, and the opportunity for transmitting H.I.V. is greatest among members of this group.

The report, by the government agency Statistics South Africa, caused contention even before its release, which came more than a month after the originally scheduled date. Critics charged - and the agency denied - that the delay was because of political pressure from President Thabo Mbeki's government, which they say has long played down the dimensions of the AIDS crisis here.

The report states that 499,000 of South Africa's roughly 44 million people died in 2002, up sharply from 318,000 in 1997. Much of that increase appears to result from H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Experts agree that there are at least five million H.I.V.-positive citizens here, the most of any country. Diagnosing AIDS as a cause of death can require advanced medical knowledge and equipment. Moreover, an unknown number of AIDS deaths go unreported because South African life insurance policies frequently do not cover AIDS-related deaths.

As we celebrate Black History Month here in America, perhaps it is important or, at least, instructive that we understand the immensity of the scourge that is destroying Africans more viciously than famine or flood. Indeed, as we acknowledge the noble history of African-Americans in America, I do believe we need to keep the images created by these kinds of reports from Africa alive, vivid in the backs of our minds. And, should we wonder if the cost of war in Iraq, which each and every one of us is paying or will be paying for generations to come, might not be better spent on attacking this pandemic, this horrible scourge that is ravaging Africa ... not to mention Eastern Europe?

Would not a crusade against this disease be more reasonably American and Christian than bringing democracy to the desert where, inevitably, a theocracy will prevail?