Tag: South Africa

Cases of HIV in India Could Surpass South Africa

While per capita HIV infection rates in India will likely never reach the levels found in South Africa, India is well on its way to surpassing South Africa’s tally of total AIDS cases.

Currently, the infection rate in India is estimated at only 0.7 percent. But with a population topping a billion people, that translates to 3.8 million adult cases in India compared to South Africa’s 4.7 million cases.

Even with the relatively low infection rate, this is an enormous number of cases that will strain the ability of India’s health care system to respond.

As in Africa, a mixture of denial and lack of openness about the disease has helped it spread. In some areas, such as the western state of Maharashta, as much as 2 percent of the adult population is HIV positive. That may not compare to South Africa’s 20 percent infection rate, but is high compared to a country such as the United States where HIV prevalence is only 0.61 percent (and where the prevalence is due in part to the long survival times of HIV positive individuals thanks to expensive drug regimens).

Source:

Indian HIV ‘could pass South Africa’. The BBC, May 2, 2002.

Developing Countries Need to Get Out of the Water Business

In an article for TechCentralStation.Com Dr. Roger Bate offers a persuasive argument that government misallocation of water resources is a major reason for the water problems that much of the developing world suffers from.

Bate argues that governments have a role in creating initial water allocations and setting up a framework for allowing water quotas to be traded, but then make the mistake of getting involved in the day-to-day end use of water which has the effect of promoting inefficient water usage.

A prime example of that is South Africa where, Bate explains, water quotas are allocated to farmers who are unable to sell them to anyone else. Combined with subsidies on farming, this means large chunks of water are destined for agricultural use even if that is not the most efficient usage of water. The end result is that the poor get shortchanged on their water needs.

Contrast this with Chile which largely ended subsidies for water and allow for the trading of water quotas (farmers who did not need all of the water they were allotted could turn around and sell the excess). According to Bate,

In 1970 only 27% of rural and 63% of urban dwellers [in Chile] received potable water. By the mid-90s the respective percentages were 94% and 99%. These figures are better than any other mid-income developing country in the world.

Having the state involved in deciding end water usage is a pointless exercise in futility. Other states should do more to emulate Chile’s model of tradeable quotas and let market forces determine the most efficient use of water.

Source:

Pipe Dreams for the Poor. Roger Bate, TechCentralStation.Com, March 4, 2002.

African Brain Drain — Cause or Effect?

The BBC ran a story in October about a study of the African brain drain. The study, conducted by the Pollution Research Group at Natal University in South Africa, claimed that a third of all skilled professionals in Africa have left that continent to pursue careers in the West. The study put the total cost to African countries of this brain drain at $4 billion. But the study seems to have cause and effect reversed.

Specifically, the report claims that as a result of the brain drain, African economic growth has been hampered and poverty increased. No, sorry, but it’s the other way around. Lack of economic growth and rampant poverty — often caused by political repression and a lack of freedoms — is what motivates African professionals to flee their own countries.

Consider South Africa. In 2001 South AFrica’s Education Minister Kadar Asmal accused Great Britain of unfairly raiding South Africa for teachers, and president Thabo Mbeki himself has called for a reversal of the outflow of scientists and engineers from South Africa to the West. This from a man who has defended pseudoscientific ideas such as the notion that HIV does not cause AIDS, and whose political party has tried to clamp down on criticism from South Africa’s press.

The amazing thing is not that Africa loses about 23,000 qualified academic professionals each year, but rather that even more don’t choose to leave given the sorry state of African governance. When are people like Mbeki and Asmal going to stop blaming others for their predicament and start focusing on righting their own ship?

Source:

Brian drain costs Africa billions. The BBC, October 17, 2001.

African Brain Drain — Cause or Effect?

The BBC ran a story in October about a study of the African brain drain. The study, conducted by the Pollution Research Group at Natal University in South Africa, claimed that a third of all skilled professionals in Africa have left that continent to pursue careers in the West. The study put the total cost to African countries of this brain drain at $4 billion. But the study seems to have cause and effect reversed.

Specifically, the report claims that as a result of the brain drain, African economic growth has been hampered and poverty increased. No, sorry, but it’s the other way around. Lack of economic growth and rampant poverty — often caused by political repression and a lack of freedoms — is what motivates African professionals to flee their own countries.

Consider South Africa. In 2001 South AFrica’s Education Minister Kadar Asmal accused Great Britain of unfairly raiding South Africa for teachers, and president Thabo Mbeki himself has called for a reversal of the outflow of scientists and engineers from South Africa to the West. This from a man who has defended pseudoscientific ideas such as the notion that HIV does not cause AIDS, and whose political party has tried to clamp down on criticism from South Africa’s press.

The amazing thing is not that Africa loses about 23,000 qualified academic professionals each year, but rather that even more don’t choose to leave given the sorry state of African governance. When are people like Mbeki and Asmal going to stop blaming others for their predicament and start focusing on righting their own ship?

Source:

Brian drain costs Africa billions. The BBC, October 17, 2001.

South African Court Orders AIDS Drug to Be Given to Pregnant Women

For years now, the government of South Africa has refused to allow the distribution of the anti-AIDS drug nevirapine to pregnant women. In December 2001, the Pretoria High Court ordered the government to provide the drug to HIV-postive pregnant women, but incredibly the government insists it will appeal the ruling.

Nevirapine is used widely around the world to reduce the risk of an HIV-positive mother passing along the disease to her unborn child. Studies show that pregnant women taking the drug cut in half the risk of passing HIV along to their children.

Although 200 HIV-positive infants are born every day in South Africa, the government has refused to allow distribution of the drug. The government claims it is not sure the drug is safe, although it has been tested extensively. It also argues that the drug is too expensive, but the drugs’ maker, Boehringer Inglheim, has offered to provide the drug free of charge to South Africa for at least the next five years.

The real reason the drug has not been distributed seems to be due to people within the government — including president Thabo Mbeki — who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS.

Source:

SA to fight Aids drug ruling. The BBC, December 19, 2001.

Do Drug Patents Present a Major Obstacle to AIDS Treatment in Africa?

For the past several years AIDS activists have charged that patents on HIV antivirals has significantly harmed the ability of African nations to respond to the AIDS crisis. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, however, suggests that this is simply not the case.

Researcher Amir Attaran, an adjunct lecturer in public policy and a researcher at the Center for International Development, examined the status of patents on anti-AIDS drugs and found that, in fact, most such drugs were not patented in African nations. Looking at the patent status of 15 drugs in 53 African countries, they found only 172 actually existing patents for such drugs out of the 795 patents that might exist. In fact, in several African countries there were no patents on any existing HIV drugs — and, therefore, no legal barriers to using generic versions of patented AIDS drugs — but almost no treatment of AIDS patients with those antivirals.

Not surprisingly, the real obstacle to treating HIV in Africa is the continent’s endemic poverty. According to Attaran, even with generics AIDS treatment is still going to cost $350 per person in countries that typically budget less than $10 per person in their health budgets.

Attaran could have also added to the obstacles state resistance to the reality of the AIDS epidemic. Just this month, for example, South Africa’s government stepped into a major controversy over its continuing suppression of an internal government report on the AIDS epidemic in that country. The report was suppressed largely because it called for the widespread use of anti-HIV drugs — an approach which continues to be opposed by South African president Thabo Mbeki (Mbeki has, in the past, turned down large donations of HIV drugs in accordance with this policy).

Sources:

One Expert’s Opinion: Amir Attaran Says New Study Shows that Patents Are Not the Obstacle to HIV Treatment in Africa. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard), Press Release, October 22, 2001.

Do patents for antiretroviral drugs constrain access to AIDS treatment in Africa? Amir Attaran, Lee Gillespie-White, Journal of the American Medical Association, 2001;286:1886-1892.