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Aid by AIDS Conference to them who call it Ukimwi 

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July 9, 2000 

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — With the AIDS pandemic sweeping across Africa, thousands of the world's top experts on the disease are gathering for the 13th International AIDS Conference — the first time the meeting has been held on the continent most ravaged by the disease. 

Seventy percent of the 34 million people infected with the virus that causes AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly all the world's 11 million AIDS orphans live here as well. 

``The world is finally recognizing that this is where the center of the epidemic now is,'' said Karen Bennett, spokeswoman for the conference, which begins Sunday in Durban. 

The conference delegates ``are the guys who develop the drugs and vaccines. I think it will be great if they can look around and see who they are developing them for,'' she said. 

They will not have far to look in Durban, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal province, where nearly one-third of pregnant women are HIV-positive.

That rate, though the highest in South Africa, is not extraordinary among many African countries, where the disease has raged out of control. In Botswana, nearly 36 percent of adults are infected with AIDS or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to U.N. estimates. 

Coffin sales are booming in Zimbabwe, where 25 percent of adults are infected.

Many countries in East Africa have double-digit adult infection rates. 

West Africa is not yet as badly affected, but one in 20 adults in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with more than 100 million people, are HIV positive. Every minute, another Nigerian becomes infected. 

On a continent where many countries spend just $5 a year per capita on health care, few of those infected have any chance of getting access to the drug cocktails that have helped many of those infected continue to live healthy, productive lives in Western countries. 

The disease threatens to severely damage many economies on what is already the poorest continent in the world. Medical costs and the number of AIDS orphans are expected to explode. Life expectancies already have plunged. 

``All gains in development, in quality of life, in economic growth, would at the very least cease and could be reversed,'' said Alan Whiteside, head of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of Natal in Durban.

The virus' spread is not unstoppable, however. 

Uganda, once plagued by an HIV rate of nearly 14 percent, now presents a picture of hope for Africa. 

Under the guidance of President Yoweri Museveni, Uganda launched an intensive public-awareness campaign in partnership with civic and religious groups. Billboards throughout the country warn of ``Ukimwi,'' the Swahili term for AIDS. 

The HIV rate has now plunged to 8 percent. 

``In terms of prevention, the absolutely crucial thing is to have leadership at every level, and I mean every level, from the president right down to the village elders and everybody in between,'' Whiteside said. ``Uganda is a superb example of a tremendous response at the leadership level.''

Ethiopia, with an estimated 3 million people infected, has begun following Uganda's lead. 

State, party and private newspapers run daily announcements on their front pages urging condom use, television news airs AIDS announcements every night and state television has begun running heart-rending public information spots showing young children mourning their AIDS-riddled parents.

``People are now openly discussing how the killer disease is transmitted and the precautions to be taken. There has been a marked change in the perception of people, of the virus,'' said Tesfu Mengesha, president of the Dawn of Hope Association, established by AIDS victims to fight the disease. 

Many other countries, though, have yet to tackle AIDS so aggressively. 

And with testing nonexistent in rural areas and the stigma associated with the disease so intense, many prevention efforts that do exist have fallen flat. 

Some peer educators trained to teach their neighbors about safe sex are themselves refusing to wear condoms. 

Even businesses in urban areas, where people tend to be more educated, are finding their workers resistant to prevention campaigns. 

One South African paint factory began an intensive AIDS education effort for its 400 workers, with videos in indigenous languages and small-group discussions with peer educators, said Dr. Lorraine Becker, the factory's medical officer. 

Only four of those workers take the free condoms the company gives out, she said. 

``Despite all these awareness programs and all the things we were doing, it wasn't actually touching base,'' Becker said. ``It was like peddling a bicycle uphill without a chain on.'' 

The 12,000 delegates and journalists at the AIDS conference, which has adopted the theme ``Break the Silence,'' might help dispel the stigma and inspire serious discussions about the disease across the continent, said Bennett, the conference spokeswoman. 

``We're hoping that this conference will actually take the disease to the people, so that they realize it is right on their doorstep, it is their problem too,'' she said.