Showing papers in "Vårdfacket in 1988"

In 2 years half the population will be dead from AIDS

Abstract: The Tanzanian government fears that by 1990 half the population of the Kagera region bordering Uganda and Rwanda on Lake Victoria may have died of AIDS. Every 3d person is estimated to be HIV-infected. 1st cases of AIDS were reported there only in 1983. "The new disease" affects mostly young men and women and the banana and coffee plantations are being left to their fate. The difference for this region is that the villages in the country side are affected just as hard as the big cities. In the town of Bushagera the town council has estimated that 1 sick person infects 6 others on average. The older people worry that the young will die out and who is going to support them and the children. One of the chiefs lacking answers to his own questions asked a journalist whether it is safe to rest on a mattress that had been used by an AIDS-infected person and whether you can take care of such a person without being infected yourself. At the Ndolage hospital there is testing equipment for AIDS as in the 13 other missionary hospitals in Tanzania. In 1986 100 of 139 tested HIV-positive. In 1987 the figures were 430 of 554. The director of the hospital believes that the reason especially the Kagera region has been hit so hard is because the population is more promiscuous there. Maybe they learned from the colonizers from Europe. Before them prostitution was unknown in Africa. Or maybe it is due to the tradition of polygamy of the dominating Haya tribe. In order to limit the spread of AIDS the health authorities are now planning a large meeting with the clerical leaders to make sure that even priests begin to sermon about the good use of condoms. It would not be surprising if Kagera today has a lower infection rate than other regions. The culmination may have been reached. Those who got the disease are dead. Those that have survived are most careful and conscious of the disease. The best protection is probably the fear of the diseases itself.