Back to Index

Youths stand up in achieving the Millenium Development Goals
Ngonidzashe Chipato
April 17, 2007

The Millennium Development Goals were adopted seven years ago by all the world's Governments as a blueprint for building a better world in the 21st century."The MDGs represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the world's main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases. Set for the year 2015, the MDGs are an agreed set of goals that can be achieved if all actors work together and do their part. According to a 2006 report by UNAIDS, there are about 40 million people worldwide infected with HIV; of this figure one third are young people. Around half of all infections each year are people under 25 meaning there are 6,000 new infections a day; one every 15 seconds. In a joint report from UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO), there were 4.3 million new infections of HIV and 2.9 million AIDS related deaths in 2006. These figures indicate that at the halfway stage in the 15-year Millennium Development Goal (MDG) period, goal six which aims to reverse the spread of HIV is not yet met. Progress has been made, but in order to accomplish these goals it cannot just be government, civil organisations working toward them. People in general need to take action. Young people in general need to be involved because they have experiences and indigenous ideas to help solve the problems.

This article will focus on the goal number six which is Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases. The spread of diseases like HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis wreak havoc in poor countries. Malaria, a wholly-treatable disease, is thought to account for up to 25% of child deaths in the developing world, while tuberculosis kills about two million people a year. As well as the personal tragedy, these diseases are also having a devastating effect on the economies and social development of poor countries. Twenty-five years into the HIV/AIDS pandemic, HIV and AIDS continue to be a dire threat to global public health. More than half of all new HIV infections occur among people under the age of 25, and almost 11.8 million youth are living with HIV or AIDS.At least 95 percent of all new infections occur in less developed countries - sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest hit region. Young women are more vulnerable to the HIV epidemic than men - 62 percent of infected youth are female. Young people in every region are infected with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, most new HIV infections occur among people ages 15 to 24 and are sexually acquired. Nearly nine million youth are living with HIV/AIDS, and 67 percent of these youth are young women. In sub-Saharan Africa, young women are two to six times more likely then males their same age to be HIV positive. Sexual intercourse and injection drug use are the major routes of transmission in the region. In South Asia, 1.1 million young people are HIV infected, second only in volume to sub-Saharan Africa. Injection drug use and the sex trade have fueled the epidemic, once highest in Cambodia and Thailand but reaching alarming rates in India as well. Higher rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) signal a rise in unsafe sex and highlight the need for renewed prevention efforts, especially among youth.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV prevalence rate among young women aged 15-24 years is 4.3 percent, as opposed to 1.5 percent for young men. Female children and young women are especially vulnerable due to cultural practices such as the "sugar daddy" (a relationship where sex is exchanged for material goods and protection from an older man), and to the myth that an infected man can "cure" himself by having sex with a virgin. In Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, for every infected male aged 15 to 19, there are five to six infected females the same age. Lack of Information, skills, and access to services for youth fuel the epidemic. Around the world, the vast majority of youth have little understanding of HIV transmission or how to protect themselves against HIV. Globally, 33 percent of young men and 20 percent of young women aged 15-24 can correctly identify prevention methods of HIV transmission. The frequency of condom use in most countries is under 50 percent, with more males than females reporting condom use during intercourse with a non-regular partner. Young people face serious obstacles to accessing medical care, including fear their privacy will not be respected; embarrassment; distance to services, and health providers who are reluctant to serve adolescents.The Youth and the Global HIV/AIDS Pandemic indicated that, "In sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of young people engaging in sex prior to age 15 declined and condom use increased in 9 of the 13 sub-Saharan countries studied between 2000 and 2005."

Young people are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS for numerous mostly-related reasons. Their age, physical, emotional, financial and psychological dependence mean they have less control over their bodies. These factors are intensified in times of war and poverty. For example, impoverished families are unable to educate their children or provide good medical care. In the absence of school, youths wander the streets, filling their time by having sex.

The road to reducing the epidemic and universal access is to intensify prevention efforts.
HIV does yield to determined and concerted interventions. Increased access to treatment has reduced the number of deaths due to HIV. However, rapid and sustained expansion of
HIV prevention is the only way to gain an upper hand on the epidemic. We need to work towards universal access to prevention alongside treatment and care. Successful HIV prevention activities need to include legal reform, such as property rights and reducing violence against women.

Improved dissemination of AIDS facts, and proper engagement of communities are necessary to tackle the problem. AIDS-related stigma and discrimination are major obstacles to progress and often exclude people who need help from being able to get it. All too often, at home, in the workplace, among friends, and importantly, from some health care providers themselves, people living with, or perceived as living with HIV, face abuse, exclusion and denial of care. Hostility towards the people most vulnerable to HIV infection - sex workers, injecting drug users and men who have sex with men - is often enshrined in laws which limit access to quality prevention efforts and care services.

Malaria has also been of concern with the endemic in more than 100 countries, affects approximately 300 million people each year. Pregnant women and their unborn children are at particular risk, because malaria causes prenatal deaths, low birth weight, and maternal anemia. Death rates are highest among children under age five Sub-Saharan Africa region continue to be the worst affected. Prevention and prompt treatment can do much to prevent deaths and relieve the burden of malaria on developing countries.

Tuberculosis is amongst the main causes of death from a single infectious agent among adults in developing countries. It kills 1.7 million people every year, often those in their most productive years, between 15 and 24. Over the past decade the incidence of tuberculosis has grown rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. On present trends there have been about 10 million new cases worldwide in 2005. The directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) protocol has proven effective in treating tuberculosis, but fewer than half the people in the 23 countries most affected have access to it.

Young people are called upon to stand up and work together with the officials in achieving these millennium development goals if there are to be achieved come 2015. Youths that have not been doing anything start acting right now for you are the future of tomorrow and lets have free HIV/AIDS, malaria generation.

*Ngonidzashe Chipato is a Candid Youth Member and Project Ambassador for One World Youth Project

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP