Addis Ababa — The HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa is now the most devastating disaster to befall the continent.

Within the last two decades, the HIV virus claimed ten times more deaths in Africa than all wars combined. According to UNAIDS (the UN agency responsible for HIV/AIDS), nearly 25 million persons live with HIV/AIDS in Africa, with most of these individuals expected to die within the next ten years.

Almost 14 million Africans have already died of the disease. Africa accounts for 95% of the 13 million orphans worldwide, 95% of all new infections in children 15 years or below, and, nine out of every ten global mother-to-child HIV transmission.

By the year 2010, 40 million African children will have become orphans. The much-vaunted Africa's extended family system is reeling from the unprecedented rates of untimely deaths and orphans.

African countries, especially those in Southern Africa, have high rates of infection, ranging from 13% in South Africa to 36% among the adult population of Botswana. In the heavily populated country of Nigeria, the rate of infection is 5.4% (one in 20 adults).

However, for a country of more than 120 million people, the worst is yet to come. According to some estimates, by 2020, more than 75 million Nigerians may carry the virus if the present trend continues.

The direct effects and the co-factors of HIV/AIDS in Africa The HIV infection is a formidable disease because it depends on its direct effects on the affected individual's immune system, and also expertly piggyback on existing adverse medical, social, economic, and environmental factors to wreck havoc on its victim. The HIV virus has two important direct effects: a definite infection, and, the deteriorating health status during the AIDS stages of the disease.

Once an individual becomes HIV positive, that person is theoretically capable of transmitting the infection to another individual, even without any visible deterioration in physical appearance. At least 90% of all HIV infected individuals worldwide are unaware of their high-risk status because of their robust physical appearance.

The second direct damage of HIV/AIDS is the progressive decline in the health status of the infected person, and the deteriorating physical appearance during the AIDS phase of the disease. At this stage, opportunistic infections sensing the decline of the immune system move in for the kill and eventually finish off the individual.

The piggyback effect of the HIV virus on adverse socioeconomic and environmental factors is legendary, and equally as deadly as the direct medical effects. These effects include: 1) Poverty, the so-called second cousin of HIV infection.

Communities with endemic poverty should expect an upsurge of HIV/AIDS. The HIV infection can either lead to poverty or exacerbate existing conditions.

Inevitably, any poor community with a rising incidence of HIV/AIDS begins a slow but steady progressive economic, social, and cultural decline; 2) Little or no open discussion of Sex fuels ignorance and unwittingly contribute to the spread of the infection; 3) HIV/AIDS thrives in the presence of high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and Tuberculosis, two common conditions in Africa. HIV/AIDS, poverty, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis form the so-called quadrangle of the pandemic.

Any society or community that lives with this quadrangle will sooner or later experience an explosive rise in the incidence of HIV infection; 4) HIV/AIDS destroys the micro and macro economic base of affected communities. By losing young, educated adults, many African communities are becoming economic wastebaskets, and many small children are forced into unfamiliar parental roles for their younger siblings.

HIV/AIDS also directly reverses the major gains recorded in the life expectancy rates of African countries. Experts project that countries in Southern African will lose at least twenty or more years of life expectancy in the next decade because of AIDS.

5) Gender inequity contributes to high rates of HIV infection in Africa because of the economic, social, and cultural dependence of most women to their husbands. For example, a woman who is faithful to her husband cannot, in many African societies, refuse sexual advances from her high-risk husband, without fear of physical harm, economic retaliation or social ostracism.

Middle-aged men, the Asugar daddies@ in Africa continue to seduce young girls through gifts and other conveniences. In some African countries, female teenagers between 15 and 19 years of age have infective rates of 15% or more; 6) The HIV/AIDS leads to an undue burden on the health care system of African countries.

The meager resources available to health authorities in Africa must now be spent on HIV/AIDS services. In some African countries, more than 50% of hospital beds are occupied by dying AIDS patients; 7) HIV/AIDS can lead to the political instability of many African countries.

For example, the high rates of infection among the Military of South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia may represent the gravest danger to the nascent democracies in these countries, especially if these infected soldiers do not receive lifesaving drugs. Internal conflicts over the sharing of scarce national resources may tear countries apart as national authorities of poor African nations diverted their meager resources to AIDS palliative treatment; and, 8) The lack of life saving drugs in Africa means that highly educated professionals and their irreplaceable knowledge base are lost forever.

Today, nearly 25 million Africans live with a certain death sentence, and many will die because they do not have access to life saving drugs. These drugs are available to their fellow HIV/AIDS patients in the Western democracies.