Bono, Sir Bob
Gedolf, and all those with Africa’s problems at heart will be furious to read
that Hon Richard Kamwi, the Minister of Health and Social Services cannot
account for his promises on combating HIV/AIDS. This year’s theme for the World
AIDS Day is ‘Keeping the Promise’. The public is asked to assess whether
governments, as well as the world governments, the United Nations and the
private sectors, have lived up to their promises. Whether Namibia has lived up
to its promises is hard to tell as Minister Kamwi did not respond to the
questions sent to him last week. In 2005 Namibia promised -in report to the
UNAIDS- to have all pregnant HIV-infected women on ARV and to be able to prevent
the transmission of the virus from mother to child by 2009. The Ministry of
Health and Social Services promised to have 77000 HIV patients on treatment by
2010. The ministry also made a promise to strengthen its diagnostic and testing
procedures for tuberculosis (TB), which worsen the HIV-infected people’s immune
system. In its report the ministry acknowledged that Namibia is one of the
world’s leading countries with the highest incidence of tuberculosis. For every
100,000 people there are more than 800 people infected with TB. “Case
notifications have increased steadily with the advance of HIV infection. Results
from a 1998 HIV-prevalence survey among TB patients shows that 45% of TB
patients were HIV positive,” said the report. Most cases where reported in
Katima Mulilo. The quest of Bono and Gedolf to compel the world to really help
the Third World may be overrated and over-hyped by the media. But they do have a
point. Politicians love to indulge in talks of promises. It is now time for
assessment. According to the latest figures published this week in the
UNAIDS/WHO 2006 AIDS Epidemic Update, an estimated 39.5 million people are
living with HIV. There are 4.3 million new infections in 2006 with 2.8 million
(65%) of these cases occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and significant increases
noted in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where there are indications that
infection rates have risen by more than 50% since 2004. In 2006 alone, 2.9
million people died of AIDS-related illnesses. In Namibia 230,000 are living
with HIV/AIDS. The prevalence rate among people older than 15 years is at 19.6%.
About 17000 have died of HIV/AIDS. There are 17000 children younger than 14
years living with HIV/AIDS. There are 85000 orphaned children younger than 17
years whose parents died of HIV/AIDS.