HIV/AIDS has the greatest impact on productive members of society, such as teachers, farmers, traders,
and agricultural extension workers, thus increasing the number of dependents in a household. This reduces
household productivity and caring capacity, and interrupts the transfer of local knowledge and skills
from one generation to the next. In Malawi between six and eight per cent of teachers die each year.1
In Zimbabwe, maize production on communal farms fell by 54 per cent between 1992 and 1997 because
of AIDS-related illness and death.2
The impact on the public-health sector is also devastating, as health workers either die or leave employment to care for family members, leaving clinics with low levels of qualified staff. This in turn undermines preventative health measures and increases the burden on public-health structures.
HIV/AIDS has critically diminished the agricultural labour force in some of the most badly affected sub-Saharan African countries, thus increasing food insecurity. At a macro level HIV/AIDS has a direct impact on rates of economic growth.
As a result of HIV/AIDS, more households are now headed by women, children, and elderly people.
They are particularly vulnerable because they have often sold off many of their assets to care for
sick family members, and have fewer opportunities to earn an income or grow crops. Many of these households
also need to take care of sick relatives and orphans, which further stretches traditional family-based
support networks.
Finally, HIV/AIDS kills the very people needed to respond to the current crisis: government officials, civil servants, members of civil society, and staff in the private sector.
Footnotes:
- Peter Piot & Per Pinstrup-Andersen, "AIDS: The New Challenge to Food Security" in Aids and Food Security, International Food Policy Research Institute (2002)
- See: WHO Infectious Disease Report 2002
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