By Celia Farber
Spin March 1993
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Plagued by poverty, drought, and famine, Africa has also been burdened with terrorinducing AIDS propaganda imported from the West. Is there really an epidemic of AIDS in Africa? Celia Farber reports.
Clinic of Infectious Diseases, Treichville Hospita1, Abidjan, Cote d'Ivore, Africa
We asked if we could please see the AIDS wards. The doctor, Aka Kakou, removed his glasses. "You want to see the wards?" he repeated. "Yes" we said. "Could we walk through them, just once?" The doctor rose, and motioned us to follow him. We walled down several long corridors; entire families sat waiting in clusters on straw mats. They looked as if they'd been waiting forever. We entered a room with four cots, all occupied and stopped at one of them. An old woman sat quietly by the bedside. The doctor shook the patient's foot gently, smiled, and said something. The patient, a young girl, emaciated and wheezing, smiled back. He flipped up the chart hanging on the bedpost, and recited the facts. "Twenty-five years old, HIVpositive, chronic diarrhea, fever, mycosis." He pointed to her toenails, which looked as if they had been badly bumed. "Nails atrophied. Not responding to medication" Viola. Le SIDA [AIDS].''
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"AIDS is a perception," said Dr. Kassi Manlan, director general of Health and Social Services in Cote d'lvoire. "The more you look for it, the more you see it."
Rakai District, Uganda
We were the only car on the road. Joan and I, seated in the back, stared out the car windows, silenced by the sight. It was as if the whole place had been shredded a chaos of dust and debris, rotting wood shacks, garbage, people in rags, children in rags. The poverty in Uganda was crushing, total, and unrelenting. As we drove deeper and deeper into the Rakai District, the "AIDS epicenter of the world," all this talk of HIV and Tcells and safer sex started to seem a little absurd. We got out of the car and surveyed what looked like a swamp, with a pipe emerging from it. This was, it turned out, the surrounding villages' water supply. It was also where the sewage was deposited. People looked listless, malnourished Many of the children had swollen bellies, thc telltale sign of malnutrition.
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"If people die of malaria, it is called AIDS," Krynen said. "If they die of herpes, it is called AIDS. I've even seen people die in accidents and it's been attributed to AIDS. The AIDS figures out of Africa are pure lies, pure estimate."
Rakai District, Uganda
Gerald wanted me to meet his family. He grabbed my arm and brought me over to their hut. It was dark and musty inside. A young woman carrying a small child emerged. "This is my wife and my daughter," he said. He told us he was an electrician and his monthly salary was about 1,500 Ugandan shillings, or two American dollars. I asked him, and all the others standing around, whether they had seen a new epidemic. Were they clear about what AIDS was? Were they getting any help? Any medical attention? One man laughed. "They come here in those vans every week. They give us condoms for AlDS." Gerald clutched my arm. "Madam," he said, "we are dying because we have no medication.",
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