A continent like Africa may need help in the beginning but after that, they should be able to take care of themselves.

Your plan would work if people were allowed to make their own medication.

Tell me more please...

Muthoni (Mson)

I agree that countries in africa need help to get started. But i think it's more than only medication. It's als about the knowledge of HIV of the common people.

I think the goverment need's to focus on that

But in which way should the government focus on that ljouwert? (Roy?)
South Africa has a mixture of ethnic backgrounds, there exist eleven official languages and many dialects in South Africa and 86% of the population is literate. Some people live in large cities, while others in sparsely populated rural areas. Many of these people live isolated, are underdeveloped and there's a lack of infrastructure. I think this diversity makes it very difficult to carry out HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns that actually influence people�s behaviour. So I think aid has to be community-based, on a small-scale.

The fact that they aren't allowed isn't the issue. People can't make their own anti-retroviral drugs. It's too complicated. Anything people could make on their own would be nothing but snake-oil. It took over a decade to develop these drugs by highly educated people working on them every day with the best equipment available. That's also why they are so expensive. All that research costs money, especially when most of it doesn't even pan out.

I think we have a new problem with HIV because of these drugs, though. Some people don't take it as seriously anymore because there is an effective treatment. It's not as scary and deadly to them. They don't think about the fact that they may not get tested early enough, or that the drugs often have terrible side-effects, or that if you can't afford them you're screwed. We need to educate people, especially young people, that this is still a deadly disease that is preventable.

It is much more difficult in Africa, where HIV has gone so far beyond epidemic. It's easier to stop something when it is avoidable, but that is not the case there. It's everywhere. Plus, there are language and cultural barriers. There is wide-spread poverty and lack of education. There are corrupt and totalitarian governments that don't like interference from outsiders, even humanitarian ones. It's not as if people there can just go to the corner store and buy some condoms. In some places, they can't even buy food.

Granted.

Muthoni (Mson)

AIDS is a global epidemic and needs to be treated as such.