Foreign Neighbors

Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America. Author: Peter Silver. Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company New York (2008)

HIV/AIDS has been responsible for one of the worst epidemics in history. In her book “The Invisible Cure” Helen Epstein details why Africa in particular was so devastated by the disease, which countries failed and which succeeded in the struggle to contain the virus, and why this happened. Epstein highlights a particular phenomenon, that first took place in Uganda, but which can be translated to many countries and situations, and which she calls “the invisible cure.”

In The Invisible Cure, Helen Epstein talks about why HIV/AIDS rate is so high in Africa compared to the rest of the world. Through the book, she gives us an account of the disease and the struggles that many health experts and ordinary Africans went through to understand this disease, and how different African countries approached the same problem differently. Through this paper, I will first address the different ways Uganda and Southern African countries, South Africa and Botswana in particular, dealt with this epidemic, and then explain how we can use what we have learned from these African countries to control outbreaks of communicable disease elsewhere around the world.

Evidence clearly stipulates that a long term foreign aid program is critical in saving lives. In fact, Make Poverty History (2016) states that foreign aid has reduced the number of fatalities from 12 million to 8 million per annum. Since funding in the program HIV rates have declined by 40% (The Mercury, 2015). Despite that Foreign Aid has not always benefited Australia’s national income interest; Australia has a long history of making a genuine changes to people’s lives in poor communities and has maintained to continue to keep funding to those in need. It is clear that foreign aid is essential in order to stop the spread of epidemics.

Many skeptics challenge the reasoning for investing so much money into helping so many other countries when that money could instead help us improve internal affairs. After all, foreign aid spending has increased to $50 billion a year today, which could be put towards funding education to ensure that more kids go to college and possibly affecting the innovation of the future(Morris). Giving more than you receive is nice, but when it involves a country 's financial crisis, maybe it 's best if Santa cuts back some of this year 's presents. And although the argument may be valid, lending out a helping hand can create more allies than enemies to help us in return when we need it. In fact, foreign aid only accounts for 0.5 percent of the federal budget (Stearn). Compared to all the other matters at hand that the government is worrying about, the amount of spending put into aiding poorer countries is positive in both a moral aspect and a political aspect.

            Malawi is one of six southern African countries - along with Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Swaziland - in which 14.5 million people face severe

Although ninety-five percent of people living with HIV/AIDS are in developing countries, the impact of this epidemic is global. In South Africa, where one in four adults are living with the disease, HIV/AIDS means almost certain death for those infected. In developed countries however, the introduction of antiretroviral drugs has meant HIV/AIDS is treated as a chronic condition rather than a killer disease. In developing countries like South Africa, the drugs that allow people to live with the disease elsewhere in the world, are simply too expensive for individuals and governments to afford at market price.

This leaves health programs not a priority when helping the country’s own people fight against AIDs. This leaves other countries to care for the people of Swaziland and to prevent the spread of HIV. The United States has supported Swaziland in fighting against HIV/AIDS. The priorities are to; improve access to clinical services, improve the quality of care, available testing, counselling for those who have HIV, and implementing activities to strengthen the national health system. There is more information and contacts at https://www.pepfar.gov/countries/swaziland. NERCHA is one of many organization to help Swaziland fight against HIV/AIDS. NERCHA is a non-profit organization created in 2001 to help battle the epidemic of HIV in Swaziland. The focus on prevention, impact migration, and care and support for those that are infected. There is more information on NERCHA at

The world as a whole should be mortified by what is happening in Sub-Saharan Africa. In places like Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho poverty, crime and systematic corruption are the tinder for the fire that is the HIV epidemic in Africa.

When visiting South Africa, I was intrigued at the beauty of the country, but was also curious as to how the country was dealing with one of Africa’s largest problems, AIDS/HIV. With the AIDS epidemic having started over 25 years ago, the disease continues to affect the population of Africa, especially South Africa, the nation with 5.6 million people living with HIV, the most in the world. Much of South Africa’s history of struggle with the virus is attributed to misinformation given by Thabo Mbeki, a former president, who “questioned the link between HIV and AIDS” and his former health minister who misled the nation with ideas that the virus could be treated with “beets and

Government officials in Africa argue the inefficient response during the critical threshold and the amount of money spent on establishing an American health care system parallels the imperialism movement and has left the countries vulnerable to future outbreaks, indebted and currently still unprepared. The monetary “loans”, less than half of which actually reached affected countries last year failed to educate the public (Duval). This raises the question of owing money that was not distributed to tackle immediate threats but attempted to repair years of corruption and unstable health care

The good news is that there is a low-cost drug, called praziquantel, which may prevent FGS and therefore also serve as a low-cost AIDS prevention strategy if it is administered annually to African girls and women beginning in their school-aged years. Currently, praziquantel is made generically and is available for 8 cents a tablet -- often two or three tablets administered at one time can help prevent FGS. In an earlier article published in the Public Library of Science I described this approach as "Africa's 32-cent solution for HIV/AIDS." Later in The Lancet ("Africa is desperate for praziquantel') my colleagues and I made an urgent plea to make praziquantel freely available. In response, Merck Serono, a division of the German pharmaceutical company Merck KgaA, committed to donating 250 million tablets in a January 30, 2012 announcement in London.

U.S should worry about the people in our country before lending a hand in other countries. “US Aid to Africa” I believe lending a hand to the poor, starvation, or any type of medical help can be useful but, Ebola is a serious disease to why many Africans have passed

A number of African countries have been the worst hit by the spective of AIDS. CIPLA an Indian Pharmaceutical Company has offered to market ant aids medicine at one length the cost at which it is sold by global pharmaceutical firm. However due to the product patent, law, substantial controversy has been generated around the globe on ethical grounds

South Africa currently has the largest number of people in the world living with HIV/AIDS (avert.org, 2014). In the worldwide population, there are 37 million people with HIV and 25.8 million of those people live in Sub-Saharan Africa (AMFAR.org, 2015). This total is 70% of the total population diagnosed and 88% of the HIV population are children (amfAR.org, 2015). The Foundation for AIDS Research estimates that 1.4 million people were infected in 2014, and Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 66% of the AIDS mortality rate in 2014 (amfAR.org, 2015). Many political,