AIDS Devastates Health Sector in Africa: African Health Ministers Meet to Intensify Efforts Against Epidemic

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
NAIDS PRESS RELEASE
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***UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 13.00 EDT, 7 May 2000***
AIDS DEVASTATES HEALTH SECTOR IN AFRICA
African health ministers meet to intensify efforts against epidemic
Ouagadougou, 7 May 2000 - Health systems across Africa are being devastated and need
strengthening if they are to successfully tackle the HIV epidemic now ravaging the continent,
according to Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
(UNAIDS),
"W9 know a great deal about what works to prevent or slow down the epidemic," said Dr Piot. "The
challenge is to implement it on a scale that will truly have an impact." Dr Piot was speaking at the
Meeting of Ministers of Health of the Organization of African Unity on HIV/AIDS in Ouagadougou.
Burkina Faso, which is hosting the conference, is West Africa's second most affected country, with
350 000 HIV-infected people and a prevalence rate of 7%. It is one of the world's poorest countries
and ranks 171 out of 174 countries on the Human Development Index, which the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) uses to measure standards of living worldwide.
46, guew -ieo,%0bs l ee y ex t 11
"Unless something is done quickly, this 7% figure will rise to 10%, possibly even by next year," said
Christian Lemaire of UNDP, who coordinates the UN system's response to HIV/AIDS in Burkina
Faso. "We have already prepared a study which looks at the multisectoral impact of AIDS and it is
clear that we need more information about the situation within the country itself, as well as
coordinated efforts and a broad and transparent commitment to rolling back the epidemic."
Few developing countries are equipped to deal with the additional burden of AIDS. Across Africa, the
impact of AIDS on health systems has been dramatic. The number of patients is on the rise, while
nurses and doctors fall ill and die from AIDS, stretching health care beyond its limits. AIDS has also
sparked a resurgence of tuberculosis in Africa after years of decline. In some cases, the number of
tuberculosis cases has gone up by 500% over pre-AIDS days.
"HIV does to society what it does to the human body. It undermines the very institutions that are
meant to defend society - its teachers, its doctors," Dr Piot said.
The financial burden of AiDS-related care is also crushing. In several countries, HIV-lnfected patients
occupy 50-80% of hospital beds in urban areas, crowding out patients suffering from other diseases
and consuming scarce health care resources. One year of basic medical costs for a person with AIDS
is equivalent to two to three times a country's average yearly Gross Domestic Product, with most of
the cost borne by the public sector, itself already over-stretched.

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