Despite launching worldwide, mission against HIV/AIDS, its roots continue to spread extensively around the globe, killing around 8,000 people everyday.
However, with each such death a question remains unanswered, why; why are we failing to check this spiraling tide of HIV/AIDS? Is the money not enough? Is it being misspent, or is there something else that this fight against HIV/AIDS runs short of?
However, in context of Southern Africa, we could say that money is not as bigger issue as the lack of staff is which in fact, is preventing thousands of people in these AIDS- stricken countries from accessing anti-retroviral therapy and other essential amenities that often serve as the last hope for these unprivileged people. This startling fact leaped out from a report released by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which covered four southern African countries – Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa – where more than one million people still need life-saving antiretroviral treatment but do not have access to it.
A look at the major facts, which this report uncovered:-
• In AIDS-stricken Lesotho, there are just 5 doctors and 63 nurses per 100,000 people.
• In South Africa, around 700,000 needy HIV patients are going without necessary Anti-AIDS treatment.
• Where in the United States, there are 901 nurses and 247 doctors per 100,000 people, where in South Africa these figures stand like this: 393 nurses and 74 doctors per 100,000 people, in AIDS-stricken South Africa.
• In Malawi, there are 2 doctors and 56 nurses.
• In Mozambique three doctors and 20 nurses.
These figures show that how badly fight against HIV/AIDS has been imperiled due to shortage of trained staff for treating patients with HIV/AIDS because patients with HIV/AIDS needs not only drugs and clinics; but also trained, motivated health care workers to diagnose, monitor and treat them. And the need of trained staff comes our more significantly, when another study reveals that in four Southern African countries, the national adult HIV prevalence rate has risen higher than estimated, and has even exceeded 20%. These countries are Swaziland (33.4%), Zimbabwe (20.1%), Lesotho (23.2%) and Botswana (24.1%). Therefore, we could say that merely spending millions won’t suffice the purpose because none can replace trained medical staff, which is essential to continue our fight against HIV/AIDS.
[Source ]
