With HIV/AIDS having a severe impact on Africa, eyebrows are now finally being raised to it regional and global impact, and to American interests here in the states and abroad, specifically to security (and war on terror), along with the economics of oil itself. Now that we’re “waking up” to this pandemic and it’s ramifications, will our current administration take notice, especially with it’s potential to affect our security, and most importantly…the economy of oil?
A reprint oddly enough, from Janes Defense Weekly …
The UN AIDS Programme (UNAIDS) has estimated that more than three million people will die of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the disease that leads to it, in 2005. As many as 80 per cent of these cases will be in sub-Saharan Africa. The continent has long presented many serious challenges, whether derived internally or externally, to the stability and security of its states, but Africa now faces a potentially cataclysmic threat that endangers the very viability of several of its constituent countries.
The impact this pandemic will have on the security and stability of Africa’s states is not yet fully known. Nevertheless, it is clear that AIDS is already having a severely detrimental effect on numerous key sectors %u2014 governance, food supply, infrastructure support and development %u2014 and on the socio-economic fabric of African society itself.
This comes at a time when Africa has taken on a new significance for the US, both in terms of the links between the %u2018war on terrorism%u2019 and state stability and collapse, and the continent’s rich oil potential. The effects of HIV/AIDS in terms of state stability and collapse should be at the forefront of any consideration of the potential for Africa to become more ungoverned and, therefore, open to exploitation by terrorists.
According to the UN, at the end of 2004, approximately 60 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS %u2014 divided roughly between 40 million with HIV and 20 million with AIDS. In that year, HIV/AIDS claimed an estimated 3.1 million lives, while 4.9 million were infected with HIV %u2014 14,000 per day more new infections than in any other year. This means more people continue to contract the disease than die from it, leading to this continuing worldwide climb in infection.
HIV/AIDS pandemic threatens Africa’s stability and security
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