Forum covers threat of AIDS in Africa

Studies and projects done by HIV/AIDS activists and researchers
from all over the world were presented Friday at Kaufman Hall at a
conference titled “AIDS in Africa.”

The symposium, presented by the UCLA AIDS Institute, consisted
of three panels, speakers Stephen Lewis and Laurie Garrett, and
performances by Iddi Saaka and Peter Carpenter.

The day’s events began at the Fowler Museum Terrace where,
after a buffet luncheon, five drummers led a procession to Kaufman
Hall. Keynote speaker Lewis, former Canadian ambassador and United
Nations special rnvoy of HIV/AIDS in Africa, then spoke about the
peril of AIDS in Africa. Lewis emphasized the threat to women
undergoing sexual assault and a possible technological breakthrough
regarding an internal vaginal microbicide women could wear in order
to prevent being infected by HIV.

“What has not changed in Africa is the situation of women.
The microbicide would give them a chance to protect themselves
without men’s knowledge. It would be a breakthrough in a
situation that is frankly appalling,” Lewis said.

Other panelists presented various studies being done on the
prevention and cure of AIDS in Africa including the dangers of
conveying the disease through breast milk, the threat of an
escalating AIDS and malaria rate in Angola due to the end of a
30-year civil war and the resurgence of migration from neighboring
countries, and the political consideration of HIV/AIDS as a
national security threat.

Many presenters throughout the conference accentuated the need
to regard AIDS not as an isolated disease but as a social problem
that affects, and is affected by, many aspects of society.
“One of the big issues we have to grapple with is the link
between HIV/AIDS and famine, sexual violence, war and
poverty,” said Jennifer Klot, senior adviser of the Social
Science Research Council. She continued to say that the
consideration of AIDS as a security threat to African countries was
essential to treating the disease.

Speakers also stressed the need for governments to collaborate
with African officials and people.

Karen Cheng, a researcher from Charles R. Drew University in Los
Angeles, emphasized the use of sex as an emotional relief for the
people that live in the war-torn and poverty-stricken
continent.

“One of the challenges of HIV prevention is that war
causes people to focus on today, and as we all know HIV is a
long-term disease. Soldiers often, within the first weekend of
getting their salary, spend all of it on sex and alcohol,”
she said. “We can’t decontextualize people from their
past, their present or their future.”