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XIII International AIDS Conference, Durban, 9–14 July, 2000
Author(s) -
Ziegler John B,
Ffrench Rosemary A
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2000.tb139346.x
Subject(s) - life expectancy , tragedy (event) , pandemic , development economics , malaria , economic growth , political science , history , geography , socioeconomics , sociology , covid-19 , demography , population , social science , medicine , economics , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , immunology
Let US not equivocate: a tragedy of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in Africa. AIDS today in Africa is claiming more lives than the sum total of all wars, famines and floods, and the ravages of such deadly diseases as malaria... Economic growth is being undermined and scarce development resources have to be diverted to deal with the consequences of the pandemic ... Decades have been chopped from life expectancy and young child mortality is expected to more than double in the most severely affected countries of Africa. AIDS is clearly a disaster, effectively wiping out the development gains of the past decades and sabotaging the future. Earlier this week we were shocked to learn that within South Africa one in two, that is half, of our young people will die of AIDS. The most frightening thing is that all of these infections, which statistics tell us about, and the attendant human suffering, could have been, can be, prevented. Something must be done as a matter of the greatest urgency. And with nearly two decades of dealing with the epidemic, we now do have some experience of what works. Nelson Mandela 1