AIDS in Africa

Percentage of population with HIV/AIDS. (no data available for white-coloured areas)

Sub-Saharan Africa is currently the area where AIDS is taking the largest toll. Some countries now have around 25% of the working adult population who are HIV-positive, the highest being Botswana with 35.8% (1999 estimate - source World Press Review).

As these people begin to develop full-blown AIDS, they will be unable to work, and require significant medical care. It is forecast that this will likely cause a collapse of economies and societies in the region, further increasing the suffering and hardship faced.

Many governments in the region continued to deny that there was a problem for years, and are only now starting to work towards solutions. Lack of money is the core reason why most AIDS deaths occur in Third World countries. There is a need for large amounts of money in all of the areas of prevention of the disease: Education, health-care, employment, and treatment.

Social movements in countries like South Africa, as well as international development agencies such as Oxfam, have insisted that developing countries should be permitted to manufacture cheap copies of patented AIDS medicines, a move generally resisted by the pharmaceutical companies of developed countries.

Scientific studies have suggested that AIDS spread initially in West Africa, but it is possible that there were several separate "initial sources".