will or could be extinct with in 100 years on this continent. Thank god blacks migrated to safer countries like the USA and Britain where they live prosperous lives, No, AIDS will not depopulate Africa. Birth rates are higher than death rates even in most of the countries most affected by AIDS, although a small decline in population (0.5%) is estimated this year in South Africa, despite a robust birth rate of 17.71 births/1000.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications...
However, this doesn't diminish the enormous social and economic disruption caused by the epidemic, or the burden of human suffering by those affected.
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NOTE Re John B's answer:
1. "AIDS is diagnosed differently in Africa, using the Bangui definition" is nonsense. The Bangui definition (superceded in 1994) was an epidemiological surveillance tool, not a clinical diagnostic algorithm. Most African doctors know the difference, even if this is a mystery to AIDS denialist pundits on other continents who have no actual experience, skills or qualifications to inform their views.
Lack of the kinds of diagnostic facilities such as the CT and MRI scanners and sophistcated haematology and serology laboratories taken for granted in rich Western countries has required a more clinically based diagnostic approach in some African countries, particularly early in the course of the epidemic. However, the tools available for medical practice vary considerably over what is a huge and diverse continent: the facilities available in a hospital in Cape Town or Johannesburg are very different to those available in a village in rural Rwanda.
To assert that African doctors don't know the difference between AIDS and "age-old diseases being reclassified" is ignorant and insulting to these skilled professionals.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0027,sc...
To disregard the actual experience, research and acumen of African clinicians in favour of the armchair opinions of the likes of Duesberg, Eleopolus and Turner is at best foolish, and at worst looks like racism.
Not one of these three (non African) "leading lights" of the AIDS denialist movement has any qualifications, training or experience in treating people with HIV and AIDS, or in the relevant fields of immunology and epidemiology. Only Turner has actual clinical experience: he's an accident and emergency doctor in Perth, Australia - his qualifications and clinical experience are about as irrelevant to AIDS in Africa as it is possible to get and still be a member of the medical profession. Not one of them has produced a single piece of original peer reviewed research in the area of HIV/AIDS in Africa. What counts as "research" to these people is a highly selective reading of the literature, and, as Justice Sulan observed in Eleopolus and Turner's case, either ignorantly or deliberately misrepresenting the work of others.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/sa/SA... (see pargraphs 120 - 128)
2. Deaths in South Africa increased by 57% between 1997 and 2002, despite a population increase of only 10%. The increase is most marked in 20-49 age group (the healthiest and most productive segment of the population in most countries) which saw double the rate of deaths in 2002 compared with 1997.
HIV and AIDS are rarely recorded on South African death certificates, often for easons of cultural sensitivity. Instead, the terminal opportunistic disease is given as the cause of death.
However, if AIDS is not the underlying cause, then it remains unexplained why there has been an explosion in the number of deaths of young adults from "tuberculosis", "pnuemonia", and various poorly defined "gastrointestinal" and "immune system" diseases in such a relatively modern and well resourced country by African standards.
http://www.africafocus.org/docs05/tac050...
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[Edit:] Welcome back to Yahoo! Answers, EdMurphy.
"You could rightfully conclude that there is no evidence of a deadly epidemic sweeping South Africa at all."
Well, you could, if you deliberately choose to remain ignorant of the mortality figures which show a DOUBLING of the rate of deaths (excluding non natural deaths) in young adults aged 20-49 between 1997 and 2002, and which have, on recent estimates, almost DOUBLED AGAIN in the five years following 2002.
The fact that previously healthy young adults are dying at extraordinary rates in South Africa is uncontroversial. There is barely a South African with a functioning brain who is unaware of this everyday fact. The fact is uncontroversial, but it is a tragedy which demands an honest, intelligent and compassionate response.
That ignorant armchair pundits would sit at their computers in distant continents and try to deny this tragic reality is to my mind frankly disgusting.
The claim seems to be that AIDS deaths are only worth taking notice of if they result in death rates exceeding birth rates in any given country.
Revolting.
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*sigh* HINT TO JOHN B: put a space before and after your links and they will work.
Then, if you click on the CIA data, you will find that it was updated for 2008 projections a week ago.
That total poulations can remain steady or grow despite significant morbidity and mortality from AIDS is not in dispute. The fact that the South African Government satisticians reckon there are 4 million more people in the country than the CIA does is interesting, but irrelevant to the argument. Attempting to quantify the AIDS burden by total population figures is ludicrous.
Try looking at the changes in the patterns of deaths over the past decade.
[Last edit] John B, If I have misrepresented your views about what AIDS is, I apologise, but as I read your comment you seemed to be arguing that AIDS in Africa is not a new, distinct disease but simply an artifact of defintion. It ain't.
However, I make no apology for expressing my disgust at egoists who demand to right to have public policy indulge their sophistry and ignorance, irrespective of the real life suffering in real people such indulgence entails. I am particularly revolted by those who deny real death and suffering despite patently obvious evidence. This is not simply a game of competing abstract intellectual concepts.
And no, the CIA figures are not "my" figures. I chose these because you had already referenced them in your post. Their estimates clearly rely on a different methodology from the estimates of the South African statisticians because they differ by 4 million. What this should demonstrate is that total population estimates cannot in themselves provide an accurate estimation of AIDS related mortality, particularly when you switch beteen one methodoloy and another.
Yahoo Answers is not the place for back and forth debate. My email is open. Poor "nick" must be wondering what the hell is going on to get such responses to his question. |
