Children die as African aid targets HIV

Children die as African aid targets HIV

Young children in Africa are dying because funding is being poured into HIV fatal conditions, say experts. Treatment for fatal health conditions that kill millions of children throughout Africa is being neglected because the billions of pounds have been targeted at HIV during the past 20 years. Last year, developed countries ploughed £8.2bn into research to combat HIV, mostly for Africa, even though only eight countries, all in southern Africa, are still in the grip of a severe Aids crisis. Meanwhile the five biggest killers n the continent are the basic illnesses that affect children aged under five years old, according to figures from the World Health Organisation.

Each year diarrhoea kills about 1.5 million children under five across the world according to estimates and at least half of these are African. This is despite the fact that diahorrea it can quite easily be treated with zinc tablets that cost just over £1. Nevertheless the amount of global funding allocated to the potentially fatal illness, made up less than five per cent of worldwide research and treatment funding last year. "There has generally been a misalignment from the donors,” said Daniel Halperin, an HIV epidemiology researcher at the Harvard Medical School of Public Health. “It is time for a rethink,” he told The Observer newspaper. “Many people in the west believe all Africans are impoverished and infected with HIV,” Mr Halperin continued. “Yet the reality is that most countries have stable HIV prevalence of less than three per cent. What most people really need are things such as clean water and family planning. Even tuberculosis and malaria get far less money than HIV. In some cases these sectors have inadvertently been hurt by the focus on HIV."

Other health crises in Africa include malaria, which kills an estimated 400,000 people a year, and complications from pregnancy and childbirth, which claim 350,000 lives a year. Hypertension, strokes and road accidents are also of increasing concern, with many hospitals in Africa unable to cope well enough with accident and emergency cases. Corrupt officials cornering HIV/Aids funding is another problem across the continent, say experts. Last year the Global Fund asked Zimbabwe to pay back £4.4m in "misused" funds. European donors earlier this year froze HIV/Aids funding to Zambia.“The focus on treatment has distracted us from prevention," said Alan Whiteside, leading African health economist. “Solutions need to be tailored to the situation in each country. Money needs to be reallocated based on what we know now, not what we knew then."

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children