MALAWI: AIDS kills about 10 people every hour in Malawi and the government of the impoverished southern African nation is increasingly unable to cope with the crisis, Health Minister Mr Heatherwick Ntaba has claimed.
"This is a disaster because it means that the country is losing 240 people every day to HIV/AIDS and at the end of 10 years an estimated 876,000 will die if the trend continues," Mr Ntaba said. Malawi, with a population of about 11 million, is one of the countries at the centre of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to almost two-thirds of those infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide.
The government estimates that about 1 million Malawians are infected with the HIV virus and about 640,000 have died from AIDS-related causes since 1985. Mr Ntaba said Malawi was finding itself outpaced by the disease, unable to spend the money necessary to develop proper strategies against it while simultaneously losing medical personnel to AIDS-related illness or better jobs overseas.
Malawi now spends about $12 per capita on health annually, far below the $36 per capita recommended by Health Ministry officials. "Spending $12 per capita on health . . . we are not going to make a dent in the fight against HIV/AIDS," Mr Ntaba said.
About 46 per cent of all new adult infections occur in people younger than 24 with about 60 per cent being girls.
Mr Ntaba said Malawi's health sector was struggling because medical professionals leave for better jobs overseas and others die from AIDS, leaving some 90 per cent of physicians' posts and 35 per cent of nurses' jobs vacant. - (Reuters)