HIV and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa
By: Alex Van Thuyne
Some not-so-fun facts:
- There is at least 11 million orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa due to AIDS.
- Over 55% of people with AIDS are females.
- During the last decade, children being orphaned because of AIDS rose from 3.5% to 32%.
- 25,000,000 people are living with AIDS.
- In 2011, 1.2 million adults and children died from AIDS or HIV.
- 72% of the people living with HIV or AIDS in Africa live in the Sub-Saharan region.
- Hospitals are becoming held up because patients that are HIV positive stay in them four times longer than many other patients.
- It was estimated that in 14 years Malawi's food production rate will go down 14% due to HIV and AIDS.
The awareness ribon
Two kids, orphaned because of AIDS
An HIV and AIDS map
Lolisa Gibson
In the picture above is Lolisa Gibson. She was 17 years old when she found out she was born with HIV. It was quite a shock for her, especially since she has a two year old son to look after. One of her famous quotes is " The end starts with the things we do today", meaning she learned how to live with HIV instead of worrying about the last time she'll ever see her son. Now Lolisa spends all of her time trying to raise awareness about HIV, unless she's writing books such as "How I see it". Her book informs people that HIV isn't impossible to deal with and telling others that have the disease not to give up.
Fun facts:
- Since 2009, the HIV virus has been reduced in Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia together by 50%.
- HIV has also been reduced by 130,000 people in Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
- Ghana declined the most in reducing the amount of people with HIV, coming in with 76%.
- South Africa was second, declining about 63%.
- The overall drop in Sub-Saharan Africa concerning the HIV virus is 38%.
- In Uganda, the percentage of pregnant women living with HIV or AIDS was about 30% in the 1990's. In 2001 that statistic fell to 6.5%.
- Without medical intervention there was a 20-45% chance that a pregnant mother that has HIV would pass it on to her child. Now it's around a 2-28% chance.
- Treatment coverage has also been increasing. In Tanzania it went from 29% to 49%.