Uganda passing law that allows them to put homosexuals to death.

[Aractus]

I never advocated abstinence education as effective in the fight against HIV...

[The Grand Nudger]

Yet she trusted me to tell me her sexuality while she was still "in the closet" to her family and most of her friends. If I'm as bad as you think I am, she would never tell me.

Maybe she thought you'd be a little more christian and a little less Christian™ about it.....?

[TaraJo]

I never advocated abstinence education as effective in the fight against HIV...

Then what were you advocatig that would help change conditions in Africa? Please be specific so I can know exactly what stupid piece of fundamentalist theory I get to rip apart.

[Aractus]

Then what were you advocatig that would help change conditions in Africa? Please be specific so I can know exactly what stupid piece of fundamentalist theory I get to rip apart.

If you automatically assume I'm going to be "wrong" then whatever I say you're going to claim a superior moral authority over it.

I already said this.

Don't try to set me up as someone I'm not. You have to meet people where they are, you can't expect non-Christians to accept Christian morals, if you care about the people you wish to help, you have to reach them in ways which will work for them.

And this.

In africa promiscuity, adultery and prostitution are pretty much normalized accepted civil behaviour.

Condoms can be very effective at preventing the spread of HIV - but, they can also be very ineffective. There are some African countries where the number of people infected with HIV is greater than 30%.

Nothing is more important or will work better than behavioural change. This starts with education about HIV and STI's, and HIV testing. They need to be made aware that being promiscuity is dangerous, even with condom use, and that they still need to get regularly tested for STI's even if they're using condoms. They also need to be made aware that condoms offer little to no protection unless they are used religiously.

Catching HIV is very difficuilt to begin with. Link. If you have unprotected sex with an HIV positive partner, you have a 1 in 900 chance of getting infected! Condoms give you an estimated 78% success rate with HIV (same link), thus decreasing your risk of getting infected from 1 in 900 to 1 in 4090.

Thus, the long-term impact of 100% condom usage in African countries (that number is purely hypothetical and not realistic) which presently have 30% of their population infected, would reduce HIV prevalence to around 7%. Does that number sound reasonable to you?

Well it doesn't sound reasonable to me. And that's exactly why you can't solve the problem with condoms alone. Yes condom use is one effective behavioural change, but on its own it isn't enough to reduce HIV prevalence from 30% to below 7% even in the long term. Even adding circumcision to every male won't drop the rate below 6% (even if 100% of the population was originally uncircumcised) as it only reduces the risk for men of contracting HIV and not women.

[JohnDG]

Let's just put ourselves into the shoes of a homosexual in Uganda. Based upon the region, people, religion. They aren't being castrated, paraded through town, sodomized with objects, stoned by crowds, burned at the stake, tortured or mutilated. But that could be how they execute people in Uganda.

[Kirbmarc]

This starts with education about HIV and STI's, and HIV testing. They need to be made aware that being promiscuity is dangerous, even with condom use, and that they still need to get regularly tested for STI's even if they're using condoms. They also need to be made aware that condoms offer little to no protection unless they are used religiously.

This is a good contingency plan. But it's still not enough. We also need to build more hospital and HIV testing structures, to fight the witch doctor myths about HIV (one of those witch doctors was even elected to a position of power in South Africa), to organize a chain of distribution of condoms, to treat HIV-infected mothers to minimize the risks of transmission to their children (yes, you can do that, if they receive adequate medical attention) and to establish political regimes stable enough to implement all of this.

Anyway, no matter how hard we try, we'll never defeat HIV until we find a cure.The best hope for Africa resides in our labs.

[festive1]

Nothing is more important or will work better than behavioural change. This starts with education about HIV and STI's, and HIV testing. They need to be made aware that being promiscuity is dangerous, even with condom use, and that they still need to get regularly tested for STI's even if they're using condoms. They also need to be made aware that condoms offer little to no protection unless they are used religiously.

However, many Africans don't want to be tested for HIV. In places where the anti-retroviral drugs are very expensive or difficult to obtain, being diagnosed as HIV positive is a death sentence. People who are known to be HIV positive are often shunned and ostracized. The vast majority of Africans aren't able to simply pop into the local pharmacy to pick up their meds, not that they could afford them in the first place. A lot of people travel long distances (many on foot) and face long waits just to be seen by a doctor.
Again, Africa is not Western. They have virtually nothing that resembles an infrastructure (roads, transportation, or hospitals/medical facilities) like we have in industrial and post-industrial countries, especially outside of major cities. Attempting to tackle the problem of AIDS in Africa from a decidedly Western point of view, isn't going to help anyone. That's what has pretty much been done up to this point, and the rate of infection is just now starting to level off in most countries. And what about the societal and economic impact of these countries that have 30+% of infection rates? They have lost virtually all their young-adult to middle-aged people. In some areas there's no one left except for the elderly and the kids, so who is going to work to support the family when both parents are dead from AIDS?

[Aractus]

Testing is not that expensive, this is why we (western countries) should be able to provide free testing for everyone who wants it. Again, I think education about HIV is the key, set up community support programs, and of course, give them the opportunity to build and plan for the future. Motivation is a powerful thing, and when a group is motivated they can achieve greatness.

[Zen Badger]

Testing is not that expensive, this is why we (western countries) should be able to provide free testing for everyone who wants it. Again, I think education about HIV is the key, set up community support programs, and of course, give them the opportunity to build and plan for the future. Motivation is a powerful thing, and when a group is motivated they can achieve greatness.

But what they actually get is christian missionaries going over there and telling them that homosexuality is evil and that witches are real.

Good work there.

[festive1]

Testing is not that expensive, this is why we (western countries) should be able to provide free testing for everyone who wants it. Again, I think education about HIV is the key, set up community support programs, and of course, give them the opportunity to build and plan for the future. Motivation is a powerful thing, and when a group is motivated they can achieve greatness.

Testing is not an issue of expense, it's a matter of they don't want to know. Part of the problem in dealing with AIDS in Africa is that Westerners have gone in and treated it as we would in industrialized, Western countries. It's condescending and ultimately alienates a lot of Africans. Some of the most successful AIDS programs are run by local African groups with the support of Western nations (in the form of money, pharmaceuticals, medical professionals, etc.), but leave the running of the programs to mainly Africans.