In 2007, the United Nations admitted that it overstated the extent of the epidemic to help gather political and financial support for combating AIDS. Today, a vaccine against the disease is still to be found, in spite of an $11.3 billion global research fund to date. One vaccine, on trial, showed that it increased the risk of contracting the disease, instead of preventing it. Even the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases doubt its capability to predict whether an effective vaccine will, indeed, be developed. But they are “not giving up.” Now, everybody is worried that the current global recession is going to affect research funding.

Because the word ‘Africa’ conjures up images of misery and pain due to disease (and, thus, would be a good PR point for fundraising anytime), Africa is said to be devastated by AIDS. The ‘dark continent’ always does look good on some concerned group’s development report. Besides, it is always tempting to fiddle with African figures since the continent is largely unknown and unknowable, therefore, prone to approximating the unknown. We also always expect the worst of Africa, and that is a prevailing mindset. If one looks closely at the figures coming from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the estimators of AIDS, and compare it with the African data on disease mortality, AIDS is not Africa’s killer disease. Malaria is.
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