AIDS Epidemic Ravages Generation of African Farmers

Originally published by Reuters, February 21, 2002

ROME (Reuters) — The AIDS epidemic is ravaging an entire generation of farm workers as it sweeps through rural Africa, the president of a United Nations development agency said Wednesday.

"AIDS is devastating rural life in many parts of Africa. You have a disappearing generation," Lennard Bage, head of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), told Reuters.

The United Nations has said that in Africa's 25 worst affected countries 7 million agricultural workers have died from AIDS since 1985 and 16 million more could die by 2020.

"AIDS is taking a tremendous toll," Bage noted. "By now most people with AIDS are living in the rural areas," he added, speaking at IFAD's annual meeting.

Bage said AIDS was depriving Africa of the labour force needed to provide food for the hungry, severely hindering the continent's efforts to halve hunger and poverty by 2015, a goal set by the UN.

According to the World Bank, the average annual loss in gross domestic product per capita due to HIV/AIDS in Africa is around 1%.

At the IFAD meeting, Swaziland's Farm Minister Roy Fanourakis said some hospitals were telling patients they had AIDS-related diseases such as tuberculosis without informing them it was because they had AIDS. So when they went back home they were treated for their specific illness but carried on risky sexual practices.

But Bage said successful prevention campaigns, such as that seen in Uganda, offered some hope for the future.