Britain, a football fanatic nation will 'donate' to South Africa 42 million condoms as fans are getting prepared to descend to the country ready for World Cup.
Meanwhile, the Britain Department for International Development is set to announce 1 million pound funding at an emergency funding summit in London on HIV prevention and treatment to be held soon. Earlier on while on official visit to Buckingham Palace, Mr Jacob Zuma a President of South had requested the Queen for the extra 1 billion condom to cater for the expected thousand of tourists who are going to watch world cup on june this year.
South Africa, has 5 million people with HIV infection, the highest number in the whole continent, and the goverment has warned that 40,000 prostitutes might enter the country to watch the world cup, hence PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE.
Logically this is not a donation but a necessity especially coming from ever cautious nation like Britain. Brits wear crash helmets when they cycle, they expect their goverment to ensure that every last molecule of any chemical that even sounds scary is removed from tap water, and they buy bags of nuts with the words 'warning: contain nuts' on the packet.
Consider this, In South Africa one in every five adults live with HIV and a nation has an estimate of 5.7 million victims, the highest rate in Africa. This is the country that even her own President admitted of taking shower after sex to lower the risk of infection. Earlier this year President Zuma did not use a condom when having sex with a daughter of a family friend who subsequently gave birth to his 20th child.
On the whole Africa state of disease is worrying to say the least, by 2002, about 17 million africans had died of AIDS, and 29 million were HIV positive. Pause for a moment to ponder it: 46 million africans either dead or doomed. Its more than seven times the number of jews, Gypsies and homesexuals murdered by Hitler. It's one and a half times the 30 million chinese who died of starvation under Mao Zedong. Its three quarters of the death toll during the whole of the Second World War, and by the time AIDS has claimed its last African victim, it may outnumber even that. ( extracted from The Shackled Continent, by Robert Guest).
Obviously in Britain Aids is no longer a death sentence. Costly drug cocktails can keep HIV-positive patients alive and healthy for a long time. But still a prudent and cautious goverment would rather spend now and prevent huge bills in future.
Of late FIFA ( The World football governing body) has already sold 630,021 ticket to 188 countries ready to enjoy the world's most glamouring event taking place from june 9th, 2010.
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