Africa – A Black Hole on Earth

Africa is said to be a continent that has the finest blessings of the nature, with wide variety of fauna and flora African Safaris are dream for every one. Africa is also known for it’s rich tribal civilization. Clearly Africa draws a major attention for tourists, travelers, animal lovers. Another key thing that is noticed here is, wide spread poverty, poor education, terrorism, illegal trade practices, poor health conditions, epedemic. There are many spheres of life where we could say that Africa is still living in the stone age or may be dark age.

Talking about hunger and malnutrition, 30 million people were directly affected by famine and malnutrition. About 5 million children died in 1984 alone.Ethiopia alone had 9 million famine victims in 1983,protein energy deficiency is the major concern effecting nearly 100 million lives.Iron deficiencyaffects 150 million peoplemostly women and children.

Table 1. Main Causes of Mortality in Africa in 2001
I. Communicable diseases, maternal and perinatal conditions and nutritional deficiencies
Type	Disease	Numbers of deaths	% of all deaths	Cumulative
Infectious and parasitic diseases	HIV/AIDS	2196956	21%	21%
Respiratory infections	Lower respiratory infections	1025455	10%	30%
Infectious and parasitic diseases	Malaria	962736	9%	39%
Infectious and parasitic diseases	Diarrhoeal diseases	702822	7%	46%
Infectious and parasitic diseases	Childhood diseases	695187	7%	52%
Perinatal conditions	Perinatal conditions	576278	5%	58%
Infectious and parasitic diseases	Measles	426743	4%	62%
Infectious and parasitic diseases	Tuberculosis	335142	3%	65%
Total number of deaths from all diseases		10681000	100%	100%
Source: Adapted from World Health Report 2002;  Annex Table 2

In 2002 communicable diseases continued to be the main causes of death in Africa. Five conditions accounted for over 50% of all deaths, HIV/AIDS, lower respiratory infections, Malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and childhood diseases.

HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) 2002
Epidemic started	late ’70s, early ‘80s
Adults and children living with HIV/AIDS	29.4 million
Adults and children newly infected with HIV	3.5 million
Estimated adult and child deaths during 2002	2.4 million
Adult prevalence rate (*)	8.8%
% of HIV- positive adults who are women	58%
Main mode(s) of transmission for adults living with HIV/AIDS	Heterosexual
Source: Adapted from Annex Table 1 Basic indicators for all Member States World Health report 2002& UNAIDS – AIDS epidemic update December 2002

Epidemics are the major cause of worry for African nations, due to lack of education and awareness people are easy victims of HIV/AIDS which is killing mainly 15-49 year old, the backbone of the working population. Southern African region is also in the grips of a famine partially precipitated by the AIDS epidemic that has decimated the farmers and families in the rural areas. The data below shows the fact about these issues. Data about the life expectency can be found on the link.

Clearly the facts shown here are mind shaking, we talk about going in 21st century, but looking Africa with a global perception clearly shows that the light of knowledge and awareness is still to lighten the African turf. Missing out on these issues is clearly showing that our achievements are still to reach every soul on this earth.

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Tagged as: Africa, AIDS, education, epedemic, HIV, poverty, Terrorism