AFRICAN DATING TIP #5

December 1 is World AIDS day.
written by Napoleon Dagana

This post is specially dedicated to the millions of children all over the world who, through no fault of theirs, and for reasons they are too young to understand, had to come into this evil world with a medical albatross – an HIV positive status.

December 1 is World AIDS Day – a day set aside by humanity to attract attention to the mess we have made of this once-beautiful world. As with many other such celebrations, the day has come and gone but what are the lessons it left behind?

Lesson one: That after more than two decades of the first diagnosis of the disease, we have merely found ways and means of managing the monster so that you can live with it.

Lesson two: That the old refrain is still valid – there is no medical cure yet for the disease.

Lesson three: That a poor innocent child can be born with an HIV positive status as a result of mother-to-child transmission. The good Lord must know where humanity crossed the threshold of medical safety.

If an adult is too randy to be faithful to his spouse and ends up being HIV positive, I can understand. If a drug addict who must use syringes and needles for his trade ends up being HIV positive, it is also understandable. But what do you expect the foetus to do in order to avoid being HIV positive at birth? Find out your mother’s HIV status before implantation?

For stupid ignorant people like me the long delay in finding a cure for this pandemic appears deliberate. The figures representing resources allegedly directed towards fighting this scourge are mind boggling but results are few and far between. Apart from the barrage of TV ads and the use of every available media weapon to prove that HIV/AIDS “is real”, the silence in the direction of finding a cure is deafening. Even the blind can see clearly that not much is happening.

My useless empty head tells me that like every African problem may be it is a case of allowing us to stew in our own juice. Available statistics indicate that the HIV/AIDS problem is basically African with more than 70% of those affected and infected coming from my poor Africa. The logic here is that the Western world tried for nearly six decades to get Africans to practice acceptable family planning techniques without success. This is therefore a god-sent compulsory family planning solution.

If you think you can forcefully reduce Africa’s population by delaying finding a solution to this problem, you have another think coming. Coconut heads!