Home to around 70 percent of AIDS patients, sub Saharan Africa is at the forefront of 30-year old AIDS epidemic. After the destruction of millions of lives, now the continent is showing some signs of progress. Infection rates are getting stabilized as access to drugs getting wider.

Still, there are many challenges to face.

Following are the short reports:

Access to Drugs

Though free drugs are available, but just around 360,000 people are getting the treatment- only 30 percent of people who require it. There is a need to widen the health care to ensure people take medicines properly. Health care system is struggling hard to do that.

“You don’t really think about it, but just coming here is a very great task. I have to wake up very early, like today I woke up at 4:00 am — and I spend between five and six hours” at the clinic, said a 42-year-old woman, one of Nigeria’s 3.1 million people with HIV.

Safe Sex

After a massive campaigning (around 5-6 years), Uganda has been reported to fight AIDS very effectively with infection rates declining to 6.1 percent in 2002 compared to 18 percent in 1992.

But the sign of worry is stagnation of rates. Decline rates have stagnated and even increased slightly to 6.5 percent.
Now, after youth, married young couples and elder people are new targets of AIDS campaign.

Women in Frontline

“It’s already very difficult for the victims of sexual violence to integrate into society. It’s a disaster for those who are also affected by AIDS.”

60 percent of affected people in Africa are women.

Orphans

Pathetically, sub Saharan Africa has around 17 million children who have lost their parents to this deadly disease. Despite some improvement in spread and treatment of AIDS, numbers of orphans are increasing which is definitely a sign of worry.

“It’s huge. There’s no question about it and it’s scary — it gives me sleepless nights actually,” South African Health Minister Aaron Motsaoeledi told.