“Developing countries urgently need an AIDS vaccine to improve the effectiveness of their AIDS prevention programs. However, global spending on AIDS vaccine R&D is pitifully small—only $300-600 million/year, and focused on the strains of the virus and the eventual market in North America and Western Europe. A number of institutions, including the World Bank and the European Commission—have been searching for new mechanisms and market incentives that would raise levels of private R&D and speed development of an AIDS vaccine that would be effective and affordable in developing countries.” (aids foundation conference online 2001)
So from here we can see that the HIV virus and Aids virus is a major cause of tragedy In both the developed and developing worlds. The aim of the World Bank and the developed world to increase funding for the vaccine can be argued to be a decision that doesn’t need much thought the prevention of such disease can have a major effect on a community and improve the standard of living for millions and millions of people world wide. In the case study that will follow we will look at details of how the aids virus is affecting the standard of living in the African region and how the lack of funding currently available is affecting the county with dramatic affects.
Africa is a developing nation that is heavily under funded by both the African government and the world trade organisation and World Bank. The African nation as a whole is a largely under funded area of the world, the African nation has been hit by many problems over the past fifty years from natural disasters such as flooding, fire and earth quakes to civil war wrecking the country. This has had a major effect on the nation and has resulted in all funding given to the poverty stricken country being spent on keeping the people alive with the little food they can possibly afford.
Aids has hit the African nations very hard and currently records some of the highest levels of aids in the world, with the lack of funding given to the area this number is likely to rise to record high levels within the next ten to fifth teen years. One of the biggest affects that this has had on the countries such as Kenya is that the levels of children in the orphanages have risen dramatically over the last five years.
This is just one of the major affects that aids have on a community. As these nations can not afford the drugs required to slow down the development of the aids virus, this leaves a large number of young children with no families. Aid could be classed as a sexually transmitted disease, as it can be passed on during sex and in Africa this is one of the major ways it is transferred due to the little amount of contraceptive devices available to use as protection. Many charities such as operation Christmas child and the Christian charity tear fund work in the area in order to provide homes for the orphans and help them receive a better education to understand the dangers that they face. The affects that’s aids can have on a community will affect not only the family of the victim but it may also be passed on to there children at birth.
Although the African nations see the need for a vaccine to combat HIV and aids, they don’t see the investment in the drug as important as they see it in other vaccines which would save more lives in the long run. Diseases such as T B and typhoid are at record high levels in the community as these diseases kill large amount of people each year and what little funding the African government have for immunisations gets ploughed into these two diseases.
Development of a vaccine is not just a case of what funding is available, the main part of producing the vaccine for the African nations was to firstly do primary research to see what strain of the disease is present. This can take a lot of funding as Africa is a big country and the price of travelling alone can put up the cost. As for the development of the drug this is done in the private sector by the big drug companies, so therefore the price for the drug is set by them although it may be heavily funded by the World Bank.
“One and a half million pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa are HIV-positive. Most of their children either will be born HIV-positive or will be infected as babies through breastfeeding. About 200 in every 1,000 babies will die before their fifth birthday - wiping out 20 years of gradual reduction in child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. In industrialized countries, only about seven babies of every 1,000 die before age five.”(voanews.com)
This is a chilling fact and one that can clearly affect the whole African nation in way of population size, death rate, birth rate and average age. It can clearly be seen how aids and HIV have an affect on a community. The important thing to look at now is how these people are being affected by the lack of funding which is being held back from them and how this affects there lives. With over 1 million people all over the nation being diagnosed with either HIV or AIDS there is a major need for investment in the drug which will not cure the disease but slow the development of it down to a pace which can be seen to be controllable.
The major need for investment in the country can be seen, with most of the charitable funds in the area putting there efforts in to managing the communities who are directly affected by the virus as they can not afford the vaccine either due to the cost of it from the private sector or the fact that many of the clinics which they set up are broken in and robbed for the little supplies they have to be sold on the black market.
In Kenya, shortages of discounted AIDS drugs are endangering the lives of HIV/AIDS patients. Patients are being forced to switch to alternate medications or interrupt their treatment altogether. Some of Kenya's largest health centres regularly find it takes more than two months to get vital supplies of anti-retroviral drugs (Reuters)
The above column shows the dangers of how Kenya, one of the biggest countries in Africa, is being affected by not only the lack of funding for the vital drugs but also for the time in which it takes for the drugs to arrive in the towns and cities. This has a major affect on the population as a whole as it shows that there is a lack of not only funding but also of communication between the named countries and traders.
Africa does not only need help with its funding it also needs help with the funding of the drugs, but also with the educating of the population and with communication skills. The need for better education about sex is clear with over a million cases each year, the spread of this disease could be slowed down with a better understand and improved use of contraceptive devices. Although this disease is not spread just by sexual activity this is one of the main ways in which it is transferred. An increased knowledge of the risks and consequences could have a major affect on the amount of people contracting the disease in the first place.
Vaccines do not fight off infection; instead, they teach the immune system to recognize and attack the microbe. The world's first vaccine, for smallpox, was the cowpox virus, which causes only mild symptoms in people but primes the immune system for smallpox. (African village)
The affects that this vaccine has on the community can show that although it does not affect the body in the way it eradicates the disease it does teach the bodies antibodies to recognise the virus and turns them against each other in a way that the diseases spread through out the body is kept to a minimum although it is still likely to spread but on a smaller scale and the victim will never be free of the virus unless an anti body is found to combat the disease.
Money is so hard in the nation that there have been many deaths from the disease and now people from the local communities are coming together and realising that there is little help in the way of financing the drugs, they are trying to find alternatives ways in which to either fund the vital drugs or an alternative for people who don’t have money. One of the key elements to the treatment is to keep a balanced healthy diet in order to keep the antibodies at there strongest and this can be very hard when looking at a country that only eats once a day if that.
So in conclusion from all the information that can be seen, the affects that aids has on the African nation can have a major affect on how they live there lives, the lack of funding in the area is having a major affect of what is happening in the developing world. The lack of funding can lead to crime and even prostitution, which further spreads the disease in order for individuals to buy the life saving vaccines off the black market. The use of a vaccine is the first step in trying to combat the spread of the disease in both the developing and the developed world. Only time will tell if this will ever be affective and if funding in the developing world can be agreed to help the poverty stricken people of the world.
Bibliography
Websites
Books
Anderson , C.. - Reflective helping in HIV and AIDS. - Open University Press, 1992
Honigsbaum, Naomi. - HIV, AIDS and children : a cause for concern. - National Children's Bureau, 1990
McMullen, Richie J.. - Living with HIV in self and others. - Gay Men's Press, 1988
