Africa staggers under AIDS and Malaria

It is sad that AIDS and Malaria is striking at the African Continent. AIDS has certainly taken a larger number of lives than Malaria in Africa.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), sub-Saharan Africa has approximately 10 percent of the world's population, but is home to 70 percent of all people living with HIV. In 2003, an estimated 3 million people became newly infected with HIV, while 2.2 million people died of AIDS. Of the estimated 10 million young people aged 15-24 living with HIV worldwide, 62 percent reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. More than 11 million children under the age of 15 in sub-Saharan Africa have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS.

According to the World Health Organization’s World Malaria Report 2005:

* At the end of 2004, some 3.2 billion people lived in areas at risk of malaria transmission in 107 countries and territories.
* Between 350 and 500 million clinical episodes of malaria occur every year.
* At least one million deaths occur every year due to malaria.
* About 60% of the cases of malaria worldwide and more than 80% of the malaria deaths worldwide occur in Africa south of the Sahara.

It is an irony that people die in Africa due to lack of pesticides but pesticides is the Leading Cause of Suicidal Deaths in Asia Pacific region.