Empowering Communities, Restoring Hope

HIV/AIDS takes a staggering toll
Around the world, 40 million people are living with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, caused by HIV). Ninety-five percent of those are in developing countries¹. The region most affected by HIV/AIDS is sub-Saharan Africa - the vast part of the continent south of the Sahara Desert. That region has just over 10 percent of the world's population, but it is home to more than 60 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS, according to UNAIDS.

In 2005, an estimated 3 million new infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing the number of people there with HIV/AIDS to 25.8 million. In the same year, an estimated 2.4 million adults and children died from AIDS in countries south of the Sahara.

The prevalence of HIV varies widely among African countries. For example, in Somalia and Gambia, less than 2 percent of the adult population is infected, while in South Africa and Zambia, about one of every five adults (20 percent) is infected. In four southern African countries, rates of HIV infection have soared to levels once thought impossible. These countries are Botswana (37.3 percent), Lesotho (28.9 percent), Swaziland (38.8 percent) and Zimbabwe (24.6 percent).

Does HIV/AIDS have a special impact on Africa?
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is adding to the burden of poverty in Africa, where 80 percent of the population depends on small-scale subsistence agriculture for its food and work. HIV/AIDS-affected households, with their reduced ability to produce food, are extremely sensitive to disruptions such as drought or conflict.

So HIV/AIDS contributes to the food crisis?
Tragically, HIV/AIDS primarily affects the most productive segment of society - people between the ages of 15 and 50 - so it sidelines millions who would otherwise be working in the fields and tending the livestock. Those who are able have to work extra hard to provide food and water for their family and to ensure that the sick family member has adequate nutrition, medical care and support.

At the same time, the food crisis contributes to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. People living with HIV are constantly fighting infection and have special nutritional needs. Food consumption has been found to drop by 40 percent in homes afflicted by HIV/AIDS². Without enough nutritious food, people with AIDS become susceptible to "opportunistic infections" and other illnesses that take advantage of a weakened immune system. This vicious cycle of poor nutrition, weakness and infection often leads to death.

Does HIV/AIDS have other consequences for families?
Households affected by HIV/AIDS are drained of both energy and money, so they cannot produce or buy food as usual. As people fall sick due to HIV/AIDS, they cultivate less land and they turn to less labor-intensive, less nutritious crops. An inadequate food supply may force people to move in search of food and income, engage in dangerous work, or to trade sex for food or money - all activities that increase the likelihood of HIV infection. Since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began, more than 15 million Africans have died and 12 million African children have been orphaned, leaving the family-centered social structure of many countries severely damaged.