Energy and HIV/AIDS

Table of Contents
Facts about HIV/AIDS in Africa Status of HIV/AIDS - study by ProBEC Thoughts on HIV/AIDS and energy in Africa- Could we be missing some linkages? Energy and HIV/AIDS Trees for Life Neem Tree Related topics External links and references

HIV/AIDS is having a huge impact on communities in many countries, and no-where is this impact greater than in Sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics on HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, for instance show that the age group between 15 to 24 years is the most affected, with 36% being positive. This is the most productive and active group, whose loss deprives the community of their valuable support. Often they leave behind orphans to support themselves, or in the care of the elderly.

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[top] [end]Facts about HIV/AIDS in Africa

Today AIDS poses the foremost and fastest growing threat to development across Africa. By any measure, and at all levels, its impact is simply staggering:

At the regional level, more than 11 million Africans have already died, and another 22 million are now living with HIV/AIDS. That is two-thirds of all cases on earth.
At the national level, in at least ten other African countries, prevalence rates exceed 10%. In Zimbabwe and Botswana, one in four adults is infected.
At the individual level, in many African countries, the lifetime risk of dying of AIDS is greater than one in three. A child born in Zambia or Zimbabwe tonight is more likely than not to die of AIDS

AIDS already accounts for 9% of adult deaths from infectious disease in the developing world. By 2020, that share will quadruple to more than 37%.

The global death toll will soon surpass the worst epidemics of recorded history. And unlike those prior plagues, AIDS could well remain with us for decades to come. In South Africa, the prevalence rate grew tenfold in five years.

What sets AIDS apart is its unprecedented impact on development. Because it kills so many adults in the prime of their working and parenting lives, it decimates the workforce, fractures and impoverishes families, orphans millions, and shreds the fabric of communities. The costs it imposes force countries to make heartbreaking choices between today's lives and future lives and between health and the dozens of other vital investments for development. Sometimes development itself even contributes to the spread of AIDS. From website: www.worldbank.org/aids-econ/africa/fire.htm

[top] [end]Status of HIV/AIDS - study by ProBEC

As reported by Lasten Mika in Boiling Point (No 46 Spring 2001):

"The regional programme on biomass energy conservation (ProBEC) is implementing a demonstration project in the rural villages of Hurungwe district, 240km north west of Harare, Zimbabwe. An energy baseline survey was conducted in February 2000 to establish the energy status and the link between energy and health in the demonstration area.

One section of the survey questionnaire tried to solicit the villagers' views on the most prevalent diseases in their community. Malaria and diarrhoea were the most common diseases cited. Out of 123 respondents, only 5% acknowledged that HIV/AIDS was a prevalent disease. Does this reflect the true situation obtaining It has been reported at a regional meeting of ProBEC in Malawi in November 2000 that HIV/AIDS is threatening not only the biomass energy conservation programme but also other developmental projects.

There has been an observed increase in the number of funerals in the project areas. During the mourning period, which often lasts 2 to 3 days, a lot of wood logs are used to provide warmth and cooking fuel for the mourners. Community meetings scheduled at such times have to be postponed, as most of the community will be at the funeral. In addition, members who are sick are not able to perform their duties effectively. Death often takes away the active member, the local artisan or shop owner, resulting in the collapse of the business venture.

Loss of a trained member means that extra resources would be needed to train a replacement. More often, the community priorities have to be changed, slowing down developmental efforts. In Hurungwe district, the survey established that people travel on average 1.5km daily in search of fuelwood. In some areas they go up to 5km. This imposes a heavy burden on the elderly and the young, for the distances are too long.

Families are foregoing meals due to lack of fuelwood. In some cases the food is poorly prepared, exposing the family to malnutrition and other health problems. Under such circumstances, the concept of homebased care will not work.

HIV/AIDS issues have become so prominent that they have overshadowed other developmental issues such as energy conservation, poverty alleviation, gender etc. In Zimbabwe, the government created a special levy for the funding of HIV/AIDS programmes. As a result, other programmes have to compete for the limited resources with HIV/AIDS. However there are strong indications that programmes which focus on AIDS alone are making minimal achievements in their effort to contain the spread of the disease."

User:Marlett Balmer 31 October 2006

[top] [end]Anecdotal evidence of the impact of HIV/Aids on energy in low-income households

In the communities we are working we are seeing and hearing anecdotal evidence of the impact of HIV/Aids on low-income households. When patients are being cared for at home, we have been told that families "use twice as much energy, maybe more". Firstly, expenditure in space heating increases since the patient's room has to be kept comfortable and they often feel cold. Secondly, more energy is required for hot water since more things need to be sterilised and cleaned and thirdly, families find that they tend to cook more and more often than they would when they did not have a sick person in the home. Having an ill person in the home, regardless of the type of sickness may have the same impact but the difference is that HIV/Aids patients are nursed at home for a fairly long time, in some cases more than 6 months. Our organisation aims to collect such data in case study-type formats whenever there is an opportunity.

[top] [end]Thoughts on HIV/AIDS and energy in Africa- Could we be missing some linkages?

by User: Margaret Matinga

The link between biomass and HIV/AIDS is rarely discussed and little is known about it. Linkages can be explored from infection to socio-economic and other impacts. The question however, may be whether the impact is significant enough to warrant dedicated research.

In most countries in Africa, women find themselves vulnerable to sexual abuse as they fetch firewood in remote forests and this can contribute to infection rates especially in rural areas. However, this is likely to be a small percentage of women. Women have also been known to be forced to provide sexual favours to obtain firewood or as penance for accessing government protected forest areas by either forest guards or people posing to have some sort of authority. Statistics on such incidences are virtually non-existent and so the extent of the problem cannot be fully comprehended. Perharps the more obvious linkage however, is the impact that the extra burden that home-based care imposes on women, who in the African tradition are managers of natural resources and care-givers. With increased home-based HIV/AIDS management, women have to divide their time between securing fuel supplies, care-giving and other traditional roles.In addition, infected women often have no choice but to carry on their traditional roles and the stress can further compromise their health. An example is the use of solid biomass which has been linked to ARIs, to which immune-suppressed individuals can be especially susceptible.

Another impact is that of child-headed homes. As numbers of orhans increase, so too does the number of child-headed households. Thus children continually find themselves in perilous conditions and girl-children often assume their parents' roles as provisers; including fetching and managing biomass fuel supplies. This robes them of educational and other opportunities. Furthermore, child-headed households are unlikely to benefit from energy projects such as renewable energy projects and electrification projects introduced in their areas because they often have "no voice" and are unaware of procedures that would warrant them access to project benefits. In most cases, there is no special effort is built into such programs to address the needs of child-headed households.

Apart from the threat to biomass conservation posed by "funeral fires" that can be kept up for days, there is also the threat to biomass conservation due to increasing number of patients. Hospitals in some African countries such as in Malawi use fire wood extensively to cook food for patients. Increasing numbers of patients mean increased biomass fuel use and it is not unusual for hospitals to fail to meet the demand for food due to fuel shortages. In addition, due to over-crowding in hospitals, (patient)guardians are often forced to sleep outside in "shelters". Here, they often light up fires through out the night to keep warm and for safety.

22nd January, 2004

User: Margaret Matinga

[top] [end]Energy and HIV/AIDS

by User: Jane Okalebo

There is an urgent need to address this issue. As Margaret Matinga has mentioned above, more energy is required to cook at funerals and to provide lighting too. This issue is well elaborated in ITDG'S webpage http://www.itdg.org/html/advocacy/power_to_the_people_paper.htm.

There is an urgent and great need to explore solar energy as a source of lighting. There is also potential for the use of solar laterns. http://www.itdg.org/html/energy/docs/solar.pdf . However more focus needs to be put into communal and community ownership and sharing of solar energy projects. Cheaper technologies and designs that are affordable need to be explored with research focusing on armorphous panels and less on the crystalline panels. The ideas are plentiful. The backing, leadership and will power to implement them are major challenges.

[top] [end]Trees for Life

In order to assist HIV/AIDS victims, there is an urgent need to address opportunistic diseases like cholera, diarrhoea and Malaria. The potential to grow trees like the Moringa tree. http://www.mobot.org/gradstudents/olson/oleifera.html is growing and emerging for the purpose of its high nutritional value.

[top] [end]Neem Tree

The Neem tree extracts can be utilized for water purification and to ward off mosquitoes in stagnating waters. It is also well appreciated in Ghana in the treatment of malaria http://www.info-ghana.com/malaria.htm .

14th May, 2004 User: Jane Okalebo

Please edit and add information where appropriate

[top] [end]Related topics

[top] [end]External links and references

More about HIV/AIDS from the World Bank

Categories: Health| HIV/AIDS

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Page created: 15 January 2004; Last edited: 14 May 2007; Version: 6
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