Entry 1

Dispatches From Africa

Entry 1

Dispatches From Africa

Entry 1
Notes from different corners of the world.
March 6 2002 8:24 PM

Dispatches From Africa

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JC: As we embark on this whirlwind tour of Africa—a trip that will take us to three countries hit especially hard by the AIDS epidemic—I start with a sense of optimism at what can be done to halt the spread of this terrible epidemic.

Here in South Africa, though the problem is especially severe, it is addressable. To do so, we need to move past the debilitating debates on cause of disease and access to treatment and concentrate on proven tools and strategies that have worked in other parts of the continent.

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Countries including Uganda and Senegal are effectively arresting the prevalence of AIDS among their citizens. Leaders in these countries, on the federal and local levels, have underscored to their citizens the fact that AIDS is a direct threat to their lives. They've emphasized, too, that the situation is not hopeless but that every sector of society must be involved in the process of addressing it.

We have driven through the major cities of both Uganda and Senegal, and it's been inspiring to see billboards, frequently signed by that nation's president, describing the seriousness of the problem and what the people can do to contain this horrible affliction.

Today, here in South Africa, Rosalynn and I drove about 90 minutes out of Johannesburg to a Botanical Garden and to the Apartheid Museum, and to our amazement we did not see one billboard during the trip. Not one.

Over the next several days, we will have the opportunity to meet with leaders from every sector of society here in South Africa, in Nigeria, and in Kenya. And the questions I'll be asking are:

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  • What's being done to educate high-risk populations, including young people, sex workers, truck drivers on how to protect themselves and their loved ones from this disease?
  • What's being done to reduce the stigma associated with AIDS, which discourages people from getting tested?
  • What's being done to increase access to proven interventions such as condoms and Nevirapine, which can dramatically decrease mother-to-child transmission?
  • What's being done to mobilize partnerships including the public and private sectors, nonprofit organizations, faith-based communities and others to work on this disease?

No one that I've talked to in South Africa wants this brave and beautiful country to become a nation of cemeteries. I see a bright light on the horizon in South Africa. With resolve and resources, this country can become a clear beacon for success.

BG: One might ask how it is that President and Mrs. Carter came to travel with our foundation to three countries in Africa. There has been a natural kinship between our foundation and the Carter Center for some time now. The foundation has supported the Carter Center's campaign to rid the world of Guinea worm disease. And last year, as the world marked the end of the second decade of HIV/AIDS, President Carter visited our offices in Seattle to discuss global health challenges, including HIV/AIDS. It was during that visit that we came up with the idea of traveling together where the disease is heaviest—Africa—and visiting countries at different stages of the epidemic to learn how they are fighting it and where they are succeeding.

On this visit, our aim is threefold:

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  • To hear from the people on the front lines about where they see the solutions;
  • To encourage more focus on HIV/AIDS prevention—especially more resources and more blunt talk from governments, faith-based groups, businesses, and civil society; and
  • To help reduce the stigma of HIV/AIDS by urging leaders to speak openly and reach out in compassion to people living with HIV/AIDS.

We will meet with heads of state and health care workers. We will visit young people who are telling others about the disease and how to prevent it. We will talk to pregnant women and new mothers who are HIV-positive. We will meet commercial sex workers in some of the poorest slums in the world. And every day we will keep calling on all sectors of government and society to dramatically increase the resources and attention directed to HIV prevention, and ask everyone to help reduce the stigma by embracing those affected by HIV/AIDS, and offering them basic human dignity.

At the same time, we will stress the need for developed countries to dramatically step up their funding for fighting HIV/AIDS, and we will highlight affordable, effective interventions that can save so many lives for so little money. A comprehensive but inexpensive prevention package—including condoms, voluntary testing and counseling, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections—can dramatically cut the rate of new HIV infections. We need to make these interventions available to groups at the highest risk of contracting and spreading HIV.

In my preparation for this trip, I learned that South Africa—the wealthiest country we will visit on our trip—earns one-tenth of what we do in the U.S. per capita, and spends on health one-tenth of what we do in the U.S. per capita. Yet they face health challenges many times more difficult than we do.

Beginning tomorrow, though, it will be the faces and the voices, not the numbers that we remember.