Jaspreet Kindra
The CIA has warned that the HIV/Aids pandemic sweeping sub-Saharan Africa will lay waste to the ruling political and military elite in the region, provoking damaging power struggles over scarce state resources.
In a recent report, posted on the intelligence agency’s website, the CIA warns: “In our view, the infectious disease burden will add to political instability and slow democratic development in sub- Saharan Africa, parts of Asia, and the former Soviet Union, while also increasing political tensions in and among some developed countries.”
It says the pandemic’s socio-economic impact, which is a threat to democracy, will increase pressure on democratic transitions in sub-Saharan Africa.
The intelligence report – which also broaches the impact of other infectious diseases – quotes experts isolating HIV/Aids as the single biggest threat to the sub-Saharan economy, with predictions the disease will reduce the region’s gross domestic product by at least 20% by 2010.
The CIA says that over the next decade sub- Saharan Africa will remain the region most affected by infectious diseases, accounting for nearly half of the deaths caused by these diseases worldwide.
According to the report, at least some of the hardest-hit countries – initially in sub-Saharan Africa and later in other regions – will end up losing a quarter of their populations by 2010.
Life expectancy in South Africa and Nigeria will be drastically reduced by 20 years, and by a shocking 30 years in Botswana and Zimbabwe.
The CIA report also notes HIV’s impact on national security and international peacekeeping efforts, with the worst- affected being the sub-Saharan militaries.
“Infectious diseases are likely to continue to account for more military hospital admissions than battlefield injuries.” Last week the Mail & Guardian reported that the HIV/Aids infection rate in the South African National Defence Force may be as high as 60% to 70%.
The report notes that although only a tenth of the world’s population lives in sub-Saharan Africa, 11,5-million of 13,9- million cumulative Aids deaths have occurred there.
South Africa, in particular, is facing the biggest increase in the region. According to the report, South African companies will begin to feel the full impact of the Aids epidemic by 2005.
“One study of the projected impact of Aids on employee benefit costs in South Africa concludes [these costs] would nearly triple to 19% of salaries from 1995 to 2005, substantially eroding corporate profits.”
The report, released in January this year, is part of the United States government initiatives to protect human health and reduce the spread of infectious diseases.
Globally, HIV/Aids will probably cause more deaths than any other single infectious disease worldwide by 2020 and may account for up to half or more of infectious disease deaths in the developing world alone, the report warns.
The CIA says HIV/Aids will make tremendous budgetary claims on the countries’ economies, with most unable to afford even basic care for those infected. It says that in South Africa, the cost of treating HIV/Aids- related illnesses could account for anywhere from 35% to 85% of public health expenditure by 2005, while in Kenya expenditure on Aids could hit 50% of spending on health. Treating one Aids patient for a year in sub-Saharan Africa costs as much as educating 10 primary school students for one year, says the report.
Painting the vaccine scenario for the next 20 years, it predicts that the development of new anti-microbial drugs and vaccines will fail to keep pace with new and resistant pathogens owing to the complexity of the pathogens such as HIV and malaria.
Coupled with the poor prospects for developing a cure and the likely growing resistance to the existing multidrug therapies, the HIV/Aids burden could reach “catastrophic proportions over the next 20 years”.