The Dying Game

I saw an incredible statistic on the blurb of one of the books we received at the Library this week.

HIV and AIDS in Africa : beyond epidemiology / edited by Ezekiel Kalipeni ... [et al.].. Malden, Mass., Oxford : Blackwell Pub., 2004

- It's blurb contains the following:

AIDS is devastating many areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Over twelve million people in the region have died of AIDS in the past decade. Over 29. 4 million people in the region are infected with HIV. Of the eleven people who contract HIV each minute in the world, ten live in sub-Saharan Africa. With no known cure and no vaccine as yet available, an estimated 60 per cent of Africans under the age of eighteen today will be dead of AIDS before they reach 45 years of age.

Let me repeat that: "an estimated 60 per cent of Africans under the age of eighteen today will be dead of AIDS before they reach 45 years of age"

Now, I don't know how you make that sort of prediction, but it is horrifying. Horrifying. Because diseases like that are devasting a continent, making it impossible to build up the sorts of systems and structures development truly requires. Of course, the disease itself is feeding on ignorance and poverty. Just for the records, life expectancy is not generally that hot in sub-saharan africa.

I know we all heed the horror of a single human being brutalised and possibly murdered but tehre are millions, millions being horribly tortured to slow and ugly deaths across teh globe. Saddam wasn't half the monster capitalism really is.

Having said that, my next post will be all hot and bothered on nuances of debates on Iraq.