Academician links spread of HIV/Aids to poverty in Malawi
A Canada based Malawian academician has blamed the spread of HIV and AIDS in Malawi and other African countries to poverty and inequalities between the halves and halve nots.
Associate Professor in Public Health Paul Mkandawire is leading a group of 18 students from Carlton University in Canada who are doing a research.
He stressed that there is a powerful link between poverty, low socioeconomic status and HIV.
On the issue in the northern region, Mkandawire said unless poverty and inequalities between the poor and the rich are removed, HIV and AIDS will continue taking its toll in Malawi and Africa.
“We can say we need to have civic education or we do this or that to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS but the spread is deep rooted in poverty and inequalities between the poor and the rich,” he said.
It is estimated that over one million people are HIV positive and close to 500000 of them are on ARVs, life prolonging drugs.
Ministry of Health officials put the HIV prevalence rate at four percent.
Mkandawire said this was why Malawi and other African countries had high HIV and AIDS cases compared to developed countries or middle income countries.
HIV and AIDS was discovered three decades ago and has no cure.
So why does Botswana, a relatively richer and more equal society than Malawi have higher HIV prevalence than us? Why does South Africa have higher HIV prevalence than Malawi? Why does Swaziland have higher HIV rates than Malawi? I think the equation is more complicated than that. Factors such as illiteracy, religious beliefs, culture, etc all come into play. This research is too simplistic. But then, it was the work of students, not experts
This is not new knowledge in Malawi. We know that. Several renowned scholars have done that some twenty years. Nyasa times please do not give us raw deal here.
According to this research, the cardinal challenge
is how to tackle the problem of the inequality between the rich and the poor.
Yahweh God the Creator says SIN IS THE BEDROCK-CAUSATIVE-FACTOR for all curses like poverty, plagues like HIV-AIDS, in Genesis 3 and Deuteronomy 28-30. The earlier MALAWI and all men ACKNOWLEDGED THIS AS OUR ROOT PROBLEM AS MANKIND THE FASTER OUR THE HEALING PROCESS!!!!! The Holy Scriptures are replete with stories of poor, God-obedient people who started poor but ended up very, very rich, AND APPARENT VERY RICH PEOPLE WHO WITHIN AN INSTANT LOST ALL WHAT THEY WERE, AND THEY HAD, JUST BECAUSE THEY DID NOT OBEY GOD’s voice!!!! Examples of this are Cain’s generation, who were apparently physically rich, and… Read more »
kkkkkk Mkandawire,ophunzira ena a ku mpoto ndi mbola, kumangozitama kuti ndife anzeru, nzeru zili pati apa? Mukuchita kafukufuka zomwe anthu akukudzidziwa kale kkkkkk koma abale mabvuto alipo
hahahaha! Did this guy so called associate professor receive funding to show link between HIV and Poverty? This is worst of resources. Petrol and spark will result into fire. Even a brute would know this. Uneducated bitches would not go wrong. Please stop this nosense and do something out of the box.
Please tell the malawans who leave along the borders with Zambia who registered as voters in Zambia despite being malawans not to vote otherwise we kill them. We don’t want confusing in zambia
This is not true at all. One way to test a hypothesis is to find something that contradicts it. Why must most of the variables be controlled in an experiment? The answer is to get the most reliable results about what you want to know. Only one thing will affect the result. If we have a reasonable number of well to do (rich) individuals infected with hiv, then we can rule out poverty as the main factor in the spread of hiv. This research would have made more sense if it restricted the study to women because in most cases… Read more »
Really? I did not know this…….daaaaaaaaaa! who is this professor? Was he in coma for the last 30 years?? Associate Professor Mkandawire, if you have just recently discovered this , then sorry your thinking is as slow as a sloth’s!
You mean you REALLY didnt know that there is a link between poverty and Aids in Malawi? It really does not need academicians to point this out.Malawians, what is wrong with this country? Shame!