BLOG POST #10 - AIDS and Disease

   It all comes back to basic sanitation and access to health care. We’ll start with sanitation. The developed world has hundreds of items that promote sanitation that some of the world’s poorest people have never even heard of. Indoor plumbing, hand sanitizer, fresh water taps, these are all things usually foreign to the developing world. This makes it very easy for diseases such as cholera and dysentery to contract in these countries. In combination with the lack of access to health care, this makes for a deadly combination. Not only is it easier to contract these diseases in developing nations, but once contracted there is very little that can be done. People in Canada often take our medical care system for granted. We even complain sometime that we have to wait a whole 7 hours in emergency to see a doctor. Could you imagine if we didn’t even have to one doctor! Or would have to walk miles to wait in an overcrowded clinic to see an undersupplied, underfunded doctor. Though many of these killing diseases are easily treatable, the medication is either too expensive or in too short supply for many families in developing countries to afford. This is why diseases like cholera are practically non-existent in developed countries, but run rampant in places such as Sub-Saharan Africa. Medication for diseases like AIDS on the other hand are extremely expensive. This is why people like Magic Johnston can live comfortably with AIDS in the developed world but AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa is pretty much a death sentence.

     AFAID is a non-profit organization devoted to the eradication of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. The approach they take is a preventative one. They utilize education to ensure that young girls and boys know about proper contraception and safe sex. They also provide the necessary devices for kids to practice safe sex. While they do provide some direct financial support, most of their funds go towards raising awareness in Sub-Saharan Africa and in developing nations about the contraction, spread, and negative effects of HIV/AIDS.