Thursday, May 18, 2006

Nkosi Johnson (age 12) – South African AIDS Activist

Nkosi Johnson (age 12) – South African AIDS Activist

He was the world’s longest surviving HIV+ baby.

Yesterday was the start of my course called “HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa” taught by Eleanor Preston-Whyte. Since starting my classes in February, I have only been surrounded by social science students in Development and Population studies. In this course, there is an even mix of clinical/medical students, nurses, one doctor, social science students and some exchange studies from the U.S. and Canada. I think this will make for interesting perspectives on this course. Prof. Preston-Whyte went over a timeline of HIV/AIDs in both an international and South African context. In 1979, the first case of AIDs was found in New York. We had a brief overview of the different drugs and scandals that have come along with the drugs. We were asked to research the difficulties of the recording the prevalence of AIDs in South Africa. The range is any where from 24% - 30%. We also quickly reviewed some key organizations which are making breakthroughs in recognizing the epidemic like the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the dissidents of the disease including Mbeki and the Ministry of Health’s continuous decision to downplay the extent of the devastation of AIDS.

FYI - The 2006 International AIDS Conference will be taking place in Toronto in August 2006.

Article in Time Magazine - when Silence Kills July 2004.

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