Ian BoyneWHILE MANY Jamaicans are preoccupied with increases in bus fares, electricity and water, and are absorbed in the day-to-day tribal politics in Jamaica, Armageddon-like threats loom on the global horizon.
The HIV/AIDS and flu pandemics are two of the primary issues which are now commanding the attention of the world?s best and brightest policy-makers and intellectuals. The prestigious US-based Council on Foreign Relations has just released a report titled ?HIV and National Security: Where Are the Links?? which raises alarm over the threats to national and international security posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Up to 42 million persons are estimated to be infected with HIV/AIDS, 25.5 million of whom live in Africa, while 13 million have already died from the disease. Twelve million children have already been orphaned by the disease and in another five years a staggering 42 million are expected to be orphaned by the pandemic.
In Jamaica, an estimated 22,000 persons are living with HIV, 65 per cent of whom are unaware they carry the virus. In 2004, there were 1,112 new infections and 665 AIDS deaths. Sixty-seven children were infected and 230 children under the age of 18 years were orphaned due to the death of one or both parents.
COMPLEX DISEASE
?The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the most complex disease phenomenon humanity has ever faced, presenting researchers and political analysts with unprecedented challenges,? says the Council on Foreign Relations in its just-released report. ?The pandemic gives these states (in North America and Europe) more to worry about, complicates foreign policy and diplomatic initiatives, perturbs economic waters and offers a far more complex tomorrow for policymakers of today.?
The report quotes former US Secretary of State Colin Powell as stating that HIV/AIDS is a foreign policy issue and is ?every bit as much a crisis as Iraq or any other crisis that you might choose to point to?. HIV and National Security points out that for rich countries not directly affected by the crisis there are also serious concerns. ?There is mounting evidence that the pandemic is driving up the cost of mining for precious metals. As many wealthy countries shift toward greater dependence upon African and Russian oil supplies, mounting HIV rates in these regions pose concerns.?
As growing poverty through the disastrous effects of AIDS permeates the economies of the developing world, there will be greater sources of instability, violence and social disorder ?providing the breeding ground for increased terrorism. But there is also a direct threat to the security of states: The infection rates among soldiers, not surprisingly, are usually higher than the national average.
SECURITY FORCES AT RISK
There are 50 million persons serving in the world?s armed and police forces, the majority of whom are under 25 years of age. ?By virtue of their youth; long periods of deployment away from family and mates; access to cash and tendency to buy sex partners; likelihood to drink heavily or use drugs when off duty; capacity to impose coercive methods to obtain sex; dangerous and stressful work and general participation of macho culture, the military and the police are thought to be at special risk for all sexually transmitted diseases,? the report says.
In Russia the Major General in charge of the nation?s Military Medical Services told the political leadership that between 1999 and November 2003 there had been an alarming 25-fold increase in HIV infection in potential 18-year-old draftees. The Major General is quoted as telling the Russian political leaders that the situation is ?simply horrendous?.
In March 2003 the head of the Malawi Defence Forces said troop strength was down by over 40 per cent due to HIV deaths. By 2004 troop strength had plummeted to 50 per cent of minimum capacity necessary to guarantee state security. The Commander General of the Mozambican police force is reported as saying that the country is no longer able to recruit and train police officers fast enough to replace those dying of AIDS. More than half of the new recruits tested positive for HIV in 2003.
LIFE EXPECTANCY PLUMMETS
What HIV/AIDS has done to African countries particularly in terms of declining life expectancies is terrifying. According to the US Census Bureau, 40 nations will have declining life expectancies in five years. In as many as 35 of them the primary reason will be HIV/AIDS ? and 25 of these will be in Sub-Saharan Africa. But also eight Caribbean nations will see life expectancies drop, including, obviously, Jamaica which has one of the highest infection rates in the region.
In Malawi, life expectancy has fallen to the 1969 level, ?essentially reversing 30 years worth of development investment?, says the Council on Foreign Relations report. In Malawi today a child can expect to live for just 33 years, down from the 56 years of 1970. Shockingly, between 1970 and 2000 Zambia lost 32.4 years of life expectancy while Botswana lost 16 years and Lesotho 14.4 years. ?Such declines, in the absence of war, are unprecedented in human history,? says the report.
HIV AND THE WORKFORCE
By the end of 2006 at least 11 African countries would have lost over 10 per cent of their workforce due to AIDS. As the report, The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict After the Cold War points out, ?No disease in human experience debilitates and kills exactly as AIDS does, laying low by the tens of millions not the weak and the old, but people in the most productive ?and reproductive ? decades of their lives. The HIV connection to security stems largely from the fact that 90 per cent of fatalities associated with the virus occur among people of working age. And the epidemic is advanced, the disease is remarkably widespread, affecting the operations of Government, the armed forces schools, health-care facilities, factories and farms.?
If you want a comprehensive and chilling picture of the economic and social impact of HIV/AIDS, see Markus Haacker?s edited work, The Macroeconomics of HIV/AIDS, put out by the International Monetary Fund in 2004. The multi-agency report issued in March this year and titled AIDS in Africa: Three scenarios to 2025, is another goldmine of information. The report notes that ?UNAIDS has estimated that in some countries, illness and death rates among health workers have increased five- or six-fold as a result of AIDS. This loss of skilled people comes at the same time as the demand for health care rises and when many African health systems are characterised by broken delivery infrastructure; inadequate human resources; poorly defined services, functions, skills and protocols and weak management and administration. These are circumstances that contribute to the incentive for trained professionals to leave African countries for better opportunities elsewhere.?
A BLEAK FUTURE
In the same week that we celebrated another birthday of the world?s most inspiring Pan-Africanist, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, we reflect on this bleak picture of Africa?s future. (A lot of people don?t realise how vast Africa is ? more than 30 million square kilometres; an area equivalent of China, India, Argentina, New Zealand and the United States combined!)
But if you think AIDS is the only major global worry apart from global warming, you have not been reading. We need another article to explore yet another Armageddon-like, apocalyptic threat: The H5N1 avian influenza, called commonly the Killer Flu.
So serious is this threat of the Killer Flu regarded that no less an influential publication than Foreign Affairs ? voted last year as the most influential American publication ? devotes its July/August issue ?The Next Pandemic?. Four spine-chilling articles are presented by leading experts on the killer flu and HIV/AIDS pandemics.
?Scientists have long forecast the appearance of an influenza virus capable of infecting 40 per cent of the world?s human population and killing unimaginable numbers. Recently a new strain H5N1 influenza has shown all the earmarks of becoming that disease,? says the Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations in an article in the special issue. Since this virus first appeared in Southern China in 1997 it has mutated and has become heartier and deadlier, killing a wide range of species. Garrett quotes the March 2000 National Academy of Science?s Institute of Medicine?s flu report as stating grimly that ?the current ongoing epidemic of H5N1 avian influenza is unprecedented in its scale, in its spread and in the economic losses it has caused?.
Says the respected scholar, ?in short, doom may loom. If the relentlessly evolving virus becomes capable of human-to-human transmission, develops a power of contagion typical of human influenzas and maintains its extraordinary virulence, humanity could well face a pandemic unlike any ever witnessed?. And the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 claimed 50 million lives globally and the Black Death of Europe up to 100 million. But this Killer Flu is to be potentially deadlier.
And the potential for a vaccine to fight this virus? ?Unfortunately, there is only more gloom in the forecast,? says Garrett. ?The total number of companies willing to produce vaccines has plummeted in recent years ? In 2003 the entire market for vaccines amounted to just $5.4 billion ? less than two per cent of the global pharmaceutical market of $337.3 billion.?
It gets more frightening: ?In the event of a deadly influenza pandemic, it is doubtful that any of the world?s wealthy nations would be able to meet the needs of its own citizenry ? much less those of other countries.?
In another article in Foreign Affairs, the Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Michael T. Osterholm, says, ?the reality of a coming pandemic, however, cannot be avoided. Only its impact can be lessened?. While we are absorbed locally with our political circus and everyday economic survival, storm clouds ? real, big storm clouds ? are brewing on the horizon, making the prophets of doom seem like the true realists.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can send your comments to ianboyne1@yahoo.com or infocus@gleanerjm.com
