Aids1
- 1. 13.2 People and the Environment: Hazards; Conflicts over the use of a resource. Interactions between people and their environments at different scales, focusing on relevant human and physical systems and processes, their outcomes, changes through time and consequent issues, responses and strategies. Burglary - Disease - Storms - Volcanoes - Earthquakes - Multiple Hazard - Conflict over the use of a resource. Aids : A transmittable disease: global distribution; international and National effects. Where appropriate discuss the differences between LEDCs and MEDCs.
- 2. The origin geographical distribution, frequency of occurrence and scale of the hazard.
- 3. The effects of the hazard on the physical, built and human environments
- 4. The extent to which the hazard can be predicted and/or prevented.
- 5. Types of response to the hazard, varying from fatalism to reaction, protection and prevention. Individual or collective responses, hazard management and relief.
- 6. There are 42 million people in the world living with HIV or Aids. Seventy percent of them are in sub-Saharan Africa, where Aids has already killed more than 14 million people. The overall infection rate in the region has stabilised, but the number of deaths each year is expected to rise further.
- 7. If it were not for Aids, the number of people dying at the age of 15-34 in South Africa would be dropping slowly. Instead, it has more than doubled and is expected to reach nine times its 1980 level. Image: An HIV-positive baby in South Africa, one of 3.2 million children under 15 years old in sub-Saharan Africa who are infected.
- 8. The red bars show how Botswana’s population structure is expected to look in 20 years, taking into account the fact that nearly 39% of the population are HIV positive. The dark red bars should how it should otherwise look. Current figures show that a 15-year-old boy in Botswana has a 90% chance of contracting HIV during his lifetime.
- 9. From studies such as this one, UNAids estimates that the incomes of families living with HIV/Aids drop by 40-60%. Lost earnings and medical costs can have a devastating effect, especially if the main breadwinner falls ill or dies.
- 10. Uganda has fought Aids with an aggressive public information campaign after the epidemic slashed life expectancy from 48 years to 38 during the 1990s. Recent HIV infections appear to be on the decline in parts of the country and condom use by young single women has almost doubled in recent years.