Zimbabwe Leading the AIDS Fight

[Genji]

Robert Mugabe has taken Zimbabwe out of the prison of apartheid and colonial occupation to one of the leaders in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa, devastating entire generations as the rest of the world sits back and criticizes his leadership.

Interesting article:



HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe is showing the way for Africa in the fight against HIV/ AIDS, President Robert Mugabe said on Friday as he urged Zimbabweans to take greater personal responsibility in stopping the epidemic.


Zimbabwe is among the countries worst hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which kills more than 3,000 people every week and accounts for 70 percent of hospital admissions.

But the crisis-hit southern African nation has also become one of the few AIDS bright spots on the continent after its HIV prevalence rate declined to 18.1 percent this year from 25 percent five years ago.

Health experts attribute the drop to more condom use and the success of programs encouraging people to have fewer sexual partners.

Mugabe, in a speech to mark World Aids Day published in the official Herald newspaper, said Zimbabweans should remain on guard for a disease that the United Nations says killed 2.9 million people globally in 2005, 2.1 million of them in Africa.

"I wish to urge all Zimbabweans to adopt a radical shift in the fight against the epidemic by reducing the personal risk of contracting HIV," Mugabe said.

"We must not be complacent. This drop, which is the only one in southern Africa, suggests that we are on the right track and we have many lessons to share with our neighbors," he said.

 

[Chatha]

I think AIDS is a synthetic ailment. There are just too many evidence. AIDS is probably used by certain groups in the African government to keep the population at a minimal. Here are my reasons

1 Nobody knows where AIDS came from. How convenient. One way to treat a disease is to know about all its elements, by this you need to know how it started and where it naturaly came from. We know how cancer works so we have good ways to curb its effects and intricacies, we know cholera comes from water so we have a good idea of its bacteria, e.t.c AIDS has remained a mystery. The monkey story of how AIDS started is trully a "Monkey story", you can tell some guy cooked up that story. Till date nobody knows how AIDS work, which is why its generally called Aquired Immune Deficiency, knowing fully well that all diseases and ailments are "Aquired Immune Defficiencies", even the flu.

2 Why haven't they found a cure? We can send a man to the moon but we can't cure AIDS. They is always a sketchy explanation or cure.

3 If a virus can be so adaptive and intelligence as AIDS, then there should be a corresponding defense mechanism by the Human body. In the first place its not possible for a virus to be that intelligent, if viruses were that intelligent there would be no organized living thing on earth, so we know viruses aren't that intelligent. Argueably one could say viruses and bacterias evolved over the years, just as humans did, if this is the case humans should have adapted too. If AIDS was a natural virus, humans should have a greater resistance rate than they currently do. Vaccines are a good example. Vaccines are used at birth to help the body adapt to certain ailments, vaccines are nothing but the ailment itself. But we see that AIDS is a different case, God forbid you vaccinate someone with AIDS. For anything to be this intelligent it has to have had man made help. If AIDS came from Chimpanzees they should have died of AIDS too, they should have died of "Aquired Immune Difficiency", no animals can survive an immune deficiency. By now you would think that the most advanced living organism on earth would be better adapted and immune to many natural ailments.

4 Medicine or lack of. In Africa there is always one ailment or the other, first it was Malaria, then it was AIDS, and then Ebola Virus. And its interesting how these diseases are all related to certain groups of people. People have been surviving in that region for hundreds of years until now. These people have had their own cures for ailments ong before the pharmaceuticals. Malaria for example was prevented and treated by natural Chloroquin found from certain barks of certain trees. Yet Malaria manages to be the number one killer of humans over the years. You would at least think that they would have been better adapted for Malaria...right? No, Malaria is the number one killer of people in Africa.

5 Experients. There are accounts of pharmacuetical groups going to remote parts of Africa and experimenting with medicine, most of it is undercover and many of it never gets out or published. The food and drug industry of developed nations are the most profitable sectors. Why? Because they make their money from diseases and ailments. They don't give a crap about humanity, if they did they will subsidize AIDS medication and make it widely available. Instead they rake in huge profits from carefuly engineering diseases and pathogens. And in cases where there are no dieases and pathogen, they make up one, Restless leg syndrom, SARS, Ebola Virus, are example. To me AIDS is a synthetics disease, somebody messed up something somewhere.

 

[MetaKron]

It is quite congruous and ironic that Mugabe is the AIDS hero of the year. He is known to be deliberately starving about a quarter of his population to death. He may well be the worst tyrant in Africa.

 

[Genji]

It is quite congruous and ironic that Mugabe is the AIDS hero of the year. He is known to be deliberately starving about a quarter of his population to death. He may well be the worst tyrant in Africa.

Not all bad leaders are bad to the bone. Obviously Zimbabwe has been the sole sub-Saharan nation to make gains against HIV/AIDS.

Worst tyrant in Africa? Not even close.
Sudan, the leader of the Somali Islamic militias, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Nigeria, DR of Congo militia leaders, CAR, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ugandan rebel leaders, Liberia and Guinea all have leaders far worse than Mugabe.

 

[Chatha]

It is quite congruous and ironic that Mugabe is the AIDS hero of the year. He is known to be deliberately starving about a quarter of his population to death. He may well be the worst tyrant in Africa.

LOL

Worst tyrant in Africa? Not even close.
Sudan, the leader of the Somali Islamic militias, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Nigeria, DR of Congo militia leaders, CAR, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ugandan rebel leaders, Liberia and Guinea all have leaders far worse than Mugabe.

No fucking way that's true. Sudan, Somalis, Liberia and Congo doesn't even have a central leader, its all factions or tribes. Nigeria has a pretty good democracy. I don't know about Cameroon. The worst dictator of all time is either Robert Mugabe or Mubotu Seko of Zaire.

 

[Baron Max]

Not all bad leaders are bad to the bone. Obviously Zimbabwe has been the sole sub-Saharan nation to make gains against HIV/AIDS.

Perhaps those gains have showed up in the statistics because Mugabe has kept the people so fuckin' hungry and starving that they can't even fuck anymore!

Baron Max

 

[Communist Hamster]

1 Nobody knows where AIDS came from. How convenient. One way to treat a disease is to know about all its elements, by this you need to know how it started and where it naturaly came from. We know how cancer works so we have good ways to curb its effects and intricacies, we know cholera comes from water so we have a good idea of its bacteria, e.t.c AIDS has remained a mystery. The monkey story of how AIDS started is trully a "Monkey story", you can tell some guy cooked up that story. Till date nobody knows how AIDS work, which is why its generally called Aquired Immune Deficiency, knowing fully well that all diseases and ailments are "Aquired Immune Defficiencies", even the flu.

So because we don't know where it came from, that means it's synthetic? Not all illnesses are acquired immune deficiencies. AIDS attacks the immune system, with most other disease the disease attacks something and the immune system responds.

2 Why haven't they found a cure? We can send a man to the moon but we can't cure AIDS. They is always a sketchy explanation or cure.

That's not a reason, those two fields (aerospace and medicine) are totally unrelated.

3 If a virus can be so adaptive and intelligence as AIDS, then there should be a corresponding defense mechanism by the Human body. In the first place its not possible for a virus to be that intelligent, if viruses were that intelligent there would be no organized living thing on earth, so we know viruses aren't that intelligent.

Intelligence doesn't come into it, it is a random process. The AIDS virus changes it's protein coat (like any other virus), which is the only identifier the body can use, so to the body every AIDS virus is different so, they all have to be combated individually. If I understand correctly, AIDS changes it's protein coat faster which is why it's so hard to combat.

One could say viruses and bacterias evolved over the years, just as humans did, if this is the case humans should have adapted too. If AIDS was a natural virus, humans should have a greater resistance rate than they currently do.

Why then do we not have a greater resistance to, say, cholera?

Vaccines are a good example. Vaccines are used at birth to help the body adapt to certain ailments, vaccines are nothing but the ailment itself. But we see that AIDS is a different case, God forbid you vaccinate someone with AIDS. For anything to be this intelligent it has to have had man made help.

AIDS isn't intelligent, it's random and fast changing. And we can't make an AIDS vaccine because we do not understand how AIDS works, please understand how vaccines work and are made before stating that they are "nothing but the ailment itself"

If AIDS came from Chimpanzees they should have died of AIDS too, they should have died of "Aquired Immune Difficiency", no animals can survive an immune deficiency. By now you would think that the most advanced living organism on earth would be better adapted and immune to many natural ailments.

Didn't you just say that all illnesses are "Aquired Immune Difficiencies"? By that reasoning, all animals should die of every disease all the time. And your argument about man adapting to ailments is moot, because bacteria can evolve faster due to their shorter generation time.

4 Medicine or lack of. In Africa there is always one ailment or the other, first it was Malaria, then it was AIDS, and then Ebola Virus. And its interesting how these diseases are all related to certain groups of people. People have been surviving in that region for hundreds of years until now. These people have had their own cures for ailments ong before the pharmaceuticals. Malaria for example was prevented and treated by natural Chloroquin found from certain barks of certain trees. Yet Malaria manages to be the number one killer of humans over the years. You would at least think that they would have been better adapted for Malaria...right? No, Malaria is the number one killer of people in Africa.

Ebola is thankfully not a major issue currently. Why do you keep bringing up the issue of humans adapting to disease? Malaria has been around for about 50,000 years, and it kills so many people because
A: There is no vaccine
B: The only effective preventative measures available are expensive drugs (the malaria parasite has become resistant to the quinine in Chloroquin)
C: The malaria parasite is quick to become resistant to these expensive drugs.

5 Experients. There are accounts of pharmacuetical groups going to remote parts of Africa and experimenting with medicine, most of it is undercover and many of it never gets out or published. The food and drug industry of developed nations are the most profitable sectors. Why? Because they make their money from diseases and ailments. They don't give a crap about humanity, if they did they will subsidize AIDS medication and make it widely available. Instead they rake in huge profits from carefuly engineering diseases and pathogens. And in cases where there are no dieases and pathogen, they make up one, Restless leg syndrom, SARS, Ebola Virus, are example. To me AIDS is a synthetics disease, somebody messed up something somewhere.

The research is never published because other drugs companies would steal it. Also, can you really believe that a private company can get away with making WMDs? Countries can't, so why would a private company in the US? The CIA would be all over them.

Finally, it makes no sense to make a disease which primarily infects people who cannot afford the treatment, then kills them. If I were making a disease with which I would make a cure to sell to make money, I would make a highly infectious but non-lethal yet debilitating disease and distribute it in the first world. That way, the infected would have enough money to buy the treatment. Also, I would make it able to reinfect cured people. AIDS does none of these points.

 

[Zephyr]

It is quite congruous and ironic that Mugabe is the AIDS hero of the year. He is known to be deliberately starving about a quarter of his population to death. He may well be the worst tyrant in Africa.

Has anyone considered the possibility that the 'prevalence' went down because large numbers of HIV positive people died (at a higher rate than in other countries which have food?)

HIV kills, but it kills even more when there is (1) no access to medicine (2) malnutrition etc...

To test this hypothesis, does anyone have links to mortality rates / life expectancy / population pyramid data for Zim?

 

[Genji]

LOL

No fucking way that's true. Sudan, Somalis, Liberia and Congo doesn't even have a central leader, its all factions or tribes. Nigeria has a pretty good democracy. I don't know about Cameroon. The worst dictator of all time is either Robert Mugabe or Mubotu Seko of Zaire.

Nigeria's Obasangi is a known brutal leader. Corrupted and violent. Purchased by oil barons he seizes land, has political prisons, enforces brutality against females and has soaked up billions in oil revenue while his country is mired in poverty.
Sudan does have a central government. A strong one. Seko over Amin?? Read a bit before belching uninformed opinions.

 

[Genji]

Perhaps those gains have showed up in the statistics because Mugabe has kept the people so fuckin' hungry and starving that they can't even fuck anymore!

Baron Max

Another charming quote from Der Baron

 

[Chatha]

Nigeria's Obasangi is a known brutal leader. Corrupted and violent. Purchased by oil barons he seizes land, has political prisons, enforces brutality against females and has soaked up billions in oil revenue while his country is mired in poverty.
Sudan does have a central government. A strong one. Seko over Amin?? Read a bit before belching uninformed opinions.

That's not true.How come we' havent heard of all this in the international news? Besides, if you know anything about Nigeria you know that there are 3 tribes, Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba. Apart from the Biafran war of the 60's, civil unrest hardly errupts in Nigeria compared to other regions. The Hausas are the most powerful tribe in Nigeria, we know they are heavily influenced by the Northern Arabs(most people don't know this), but at least the muslims in Nigeria are still all black people. Obasanjo is a southerner, and little more than a puppet, so its impossible for him to have that much power. Besides, I personally have never heard of any evidence of his brutality in the International news. Nigeria used to be the richest country in Africa, and it arguably still is, thats part of their stability. You are making all this up, I have friends from Africa and I keep in touch with whats going on. Yes, Sudan has a central government but sudan has white and black population that doesn't excatly like each other at the political level, thats why we have white Arabs killing black Arab people in Sudan today(of cause its burried by the international press). Sudan is typical Arab country, there is a difference between Arab and Muslim, Nigeria is Muslim not Arab. Mobutu Seko was a rutless ruler, he makes democracy in Nigeria or Ghana look like American democracy. He ruled for 32 years after a coupe de'ta , one of the longest in African history. He had a huge cache of diamonds, there was reports of him having royal balls and serving guests with high grade diamonds for free. He flew women in from India and Europe, he contolled everything the country owned, he had huge swiss bank accounts that rivaled some European leaders. He is the epitome of a dictator. Idi Amin was pale compared to Mubuto, he only became famous because he was extremely violent, violence was his thing.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafran_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin
List of dictators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictators

 

[Chatha]

So because we don't know where it came from, that means it's synthetic? Not all illnesses are acquired immune deficiencies. AIDS attacks the immune system, with most other disease the disease attacks something and the immune system responds.

Not all disesses are Aquired Immune Deficiency? Are you sure? What sort of reasoning is that. The reason why we fall sick in the first place is because...the immune system fails. The reason they call it Aquired Immune defficiency is because they just don't know the total elements of it yet.

That's not a reason, those two fields (aerospace and medicine) are totally unrelated.

I agree.

Intelligence doesn't come into it, it is a random process. The AIDS virus changes it's protein coat (like any other virus), which is the only identifier the body can use, so to the body every AIDS virus is different so, they all have to be combated individually. If I understand correctly, AIDS changes it's protein coat faster which is why it's so hard to combat.

Basically the virus is adaptive, thats why the disease is so hard to fight. Some bacteria easily become resistant when you keep treating them with certain types of anti-bacteria. You must remember that a virus and a bacteria are living things.

Why then do we not have a greater resistance to, say, cholera?

Probably because cholera is more natural, remember scientists have said AIDS must have first been encountered by cross contermination with Monkeys, insinuating a foreign and abnormal element to the equation.

AIDS isn't intelligent, it's random and fast changing. And we can't make an AIDS vaccine because we do not understand how AIDS works, please understand how vaccines work and are made before stating that they are "nothing but the ailment itself"

Where did you go to biology school for saying AID's isn't intelligent? What makes you think so?

Didn't you just say that all illnesses are "Aquired Immune Difficiencies"? By that reasoning, all animals should die of every disease all the time. And your argument about man adapting to ailments is moot, because bacteria can evolve faster due to their shorter generation time.

It doesn't change the FACT. you catch a flue because your immune system defects, you catch a virus because your defense system defects, you catch an infection because your immune system defects. Bacteria may evolve faster due to shorter generation time but that doesn't make any difference. We pretty much came from bacteria, we are in fact aproduct of this evolution, which in fact means we should still be adequately resistant or neutral to bacterial inffections. In fact we are. We encounter bacteria every day through germs, 1 million bacteria gets inside our system every single day but we don't even know much about it, much less die from it. Of cause there are the occassional fatal bacterias but this is due to failure of immune system more than anything. To my understanding the only reason why bacteria gets the best of us is because they are in fact adapting to medicational antibiotics and we are also making our body naturaly weaker by constantly staying away from germs. This leaves the body with not enough practise to fight infectious bacteria.

Ebola is thankfully not a major issue currently. Why do you keep bringing up the issue of humans adapting to disease? Malaria has been around for about 50,000 years, and it kills so many people because
A: There is no vaccine
B: The only effective preventative measures available are expensive drugs (the malaria parasite has become resistant to the quinine in Chloroquin)
C: The malaria parasite is quick to become resistant to these expensive drugs.

I agree. But if Malaria was around for that long...and native people didn't have a remedy, how come African population is multiplying exponentialy over the years? Besides, some people are more resistant to Malaria than others, did you know that?

The research is never published because other drugs companies would steal it. Also, can you really believe that a private company can get away with making WMDs? Countries can't, so why would a private company in the US? The CIA would be all over them.

Everything should still be done in the open. Competition between companies is not a good reason when human lives are at stake. Not all this companies come up with anything successful and people are left for dead. See the movie "The constant gardner"

Finally, it makes no sense to make a disease which primarily infects people who cannot afford the treatment, then kills them. If I were making a disease with which I would make a cure to sell to make money, I would make a highly infectious but non-lethal yet debilitating disease and distribute it in the first world. That way, the infected would have enough money to buy the treatment. Also, I would make it able to reinfect cured people. AIDS does none of these points.

I don't know how old you are but drug companies have always profited from AIDS. Since AIDS first came into popular culture in the 80's there has been some form of medication to combat it. AIDS medicine is not a new thing. Everybody benefitted, even the heachache medicine producers. The symptoms of AIDS were numerous, so peole took pills for everything, from diarreah, headaches, pain, fever, vomit, to loss of blood. Obviously no one knew anything about the disease so the local doctors would prescribe what they had available.

 

[infoterror]

AIDS is RACIST.

 

[Nasor]

Where did you go to biology school for saying AID's isn't intelligent? What makes you think so?

Um...well, first off, there's the fact that viruses don't have brains. Or are you using some strange new definition of "intelligent" that I've never heard of?

 

[Genji]

AIDS is RACIST.

Isn't racism just so funny! Wait a few years when YOU are the minority. Then we'll poll whether it's still as hilarious as you always thought.

 

[Zephyr]

Actually, the way people delude themselves is pretty funny, in a 'laugh or cry' way.