Health

Two-thirds of all Aids cases in Sub-Saharan Africa, report

Article published on the 2008-06-26 Latest update 2008-06-27 12:51 TU

A doctor attends to an HIV/AIDS patient at Uganda's Infectious Disease Institute in Kampala
(Photo : Reuters)

The Red Cross and Red Crescent societies today said that Africa's Aids epidemic is so severe it should be classed with natural disasters, such as floods and famine. The World Disasters Report, released today, found that about two-thirds of the world's HIV-positive cases are in sub-Saharan Africa. In some countries, as many as one out of ten people live with HIV.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called the Aids disaster "a serious disruption of the functioning of a society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses which exceed the ability of a society to cope using only its own resources".

The report blames Aids for creating an economic strain by reducing the productivity of the workforce, and increasing labour shortages.

Lindsay Knight, who edited the report, said that the HIV and Aids epidemic is a disaster whose scale and extent could have been prevented - were it not for ignorance, stigma, political inaction, and indifference.