OrangeBand looks at AIDS in Africa

With more Africans being tested for HIV and AIDS every year, the problem is a growing epidemic, according to an "AIDS in Africa" lecture.

As part of the OrangeBand Initiative's semiannual educational forums, Wayne Teel, professor of Integrated Science and Technology, led a discussion on the problem of AIDS in Africa.

Once students familiarized themselves with the geography of the African continent, Teel presented some statistics on the number of AIDS cases in different parts of the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa reported 28.1 million cases of AIDS in 2001. Teel said in some regions of Africa, 10 percent of the working age population (20 to 45 years old) dies of AIDS within five years of testing positive for HIV. "In Africa, AIDS is a death sentence," he said.

Teel, who teaches environmental science and geography at JMU, questioned why Sub-Saharan Africa suffers so greatly from the AIDS epidemic. He said he was fascinated to learn of the connection between the alteration of the environment and the onset of the disease.

"If not for the degradation of the environment, [AIDS] would not have happened," he said.

The development of mining communities in parts of Africa, such as in Botswana and Zimbabwe, did much to facilitate the spread of AIDS, according to Teel.

The all-male dormitories for the, mining communities stimulated an increase in both homosexual activity and prostitution and precipitated a breakdown of traditional moral values.

When the men eventually returned to their families from work, they infected their wives and ensuing offspring.

Rapid urbanization and land reform further compounded the problem by accommodating highly concentrated and mobile populations. New, densely populated areas saw a signigicant increase in multiple-partner sexual activity.

Some common misconceptions about AIDS also were addressed. "AIDS is not a homosexual disease; that's a myth," Teel said. He explained that contrary to the popular belief that the gay community is responsible for the disease, homosexuals were not the first to spread AIDS; about 98 percent of transmission cases are heterosexual.

In addition to environmental factors, Teel also discussed how political ignorance assists in the spread of AIDS. He explained that many African leaders possess a desire not to know about AIDS and to push the blame onto someone else.

"There's been a lot of denial in Africa about AIDS, in part because of the stigma that goes along with it," Teel said.

Teel also argued that actions currently being taken to combat the spread of AIDS "Aggressive public health education is the key to stopping the spread of AIDS," he said. "And that is something the international community is not doing enough about."

Sophomore Meg Schrader said she enjoyed the presentation and picked up on discrepancies between her previous understanding of the importance of public health awareness and what she learned from Teel.

"In several of my health classes, the focus has been more on the drugs and advocating treatment of AIDS patients," she said. "Now I know that may not be the most effective course to take."

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 13 percent of adults in Rwanda suffer from HIV and a growing number of children are contracting the disease.

While Africa struggles to bring public health education to the forefront of its battle against AIDS, Teel noted that Americans should educated themselves. "If there's going to be playing around, let's do it with awareness," he said.

For more information on this forum visit www.orangeband.org.