Frequently Asked Questions
- Why is MCC responding to HIV/AIDS?
- How is MCC responding to HIV/AIDS?
- What kind of partners does MCC support, and what kind of resources does MCC provide?
- What is HIV/AIDS?
- What is the social impact of AIDS?
- What is the economic impact of AIDS?
- How many children have been orphaned by AIDS?
- What role do antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) play in containing the AIDS epidemic?
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Why is MCC responding to HIV/AIDS?
In countries throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, communities are being destroyed. In places like Swaziland, where nearly 40% of the adult population is HIV positive, decades of development are being reversed as society's most productive members die. Other countries in the region that are consistently facing problems of drought, political instability, and heavy debt burdens are being made even more vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. There are less farmers to produce necessary food, less teachers in government schools, and the rate of turnover and lost professional skills in many businesses are having huge economic impacts. Children with ill parents or those who lack the money for school fees have been forced to drop out of school. Millions of orphans have been left behind. Social services from governments are unable to cope with the physical health, emotional, and financial needs of those infected with or affected by the disease.
Other regions in the world are increasingly experiencing higher HIV prevalence rates, too. Throughout other parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, more people are becoming infected each year. A disease that started out in high risk populations is quickly spreading to the general public.
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How is MCC responding to HIV/AIDS?
Like famine, war, and other issues to which MCC responds, HIV/AIDS can seem at times overwhelming. Because of this, MCC has decided to focus its response on providing funding, personnel, and material aid to existing and new partners that have come forward to address HIV/AIDS in their communities. The response has been through churches and community groups that are addressing HIV/AIDS at the grassroots level. The response is focused on four areas of involvement:
- Prevention/Education/Spiritual Leadership
i.e. voluntary counseling and testing, women's training groups, youth conferences,
pastors conferences, video tape players, TV monitors, support for drama group
- Home-Based Care/Income Generation
i.e. home-based care kits, supplies, support for home based care teams, inputs for income-generation projects
- Orphan Care/Vulnerable Children - Host Family Support
i.e. school fees for children at risk, school supplies, uniforms, nutritional support
- Medical Concerns/Health Systems
i.e. basic medicines, HIV blood tests
We also realize the great magnitude of the disease, and therefore the importance of collaboration to address such a multi-faceted problem. While MCC may not have the resources and/or skills to do certain components of the work, we do have the ability to network with a host of other groups that are tackling different angles of the problem. By connecting our partners and those in need with other organizations in a country that might be doing HIV/AIDS related work, their access to other services can be greatly increased. These may include local or national government structures, international bodies such as UNAIDS, academic institutions, public and private health clinics and hospitals, and other local, national, and international NGOs.
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What kind of partners does MCC support, and what kind of resources does MCC provide?
Generally speaking, MCC partners with organizations with whom we have a history of relationship. These include churches, faith-based organizations, and other community-based groups. All decisions about partnerships are made at the country office level. MCC provides a variety of resources to support the HIV/AIDS work of our partners, including: financial grants, material resources such as AIDS Care Kits, short and long term volunteer service workers, and training and networking opportunities.
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What is HIV/AIDS?
HIV stands for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This is the virus that leads to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). HIV cannot survive outside of the body. In order to be infected, the virus must enter your bloodstream.
HIV is transmitted through:
- unprotected sexual intercourse
- shared needles or equipment for injecting drugs
- unsterilized needles for tattooing, skin piercing or acupuncture
- pregnancy, delivery and breast feeding (from an HIV-infected mother to her infant)
- occupational exposure in health care settings
Over a period of years, HIV weakens the body's immune system to the point where it can no longer fight infection. On average, it takes 10 years to progress from an initial HIV infection to AIDS. People with HIV can live for a number of years with no external sign or symptom of the disease, and may unknowingly infect others. The only way to know if you have the virus is to have an HIV blood test.
When the body can no longer fight infection, the disease is known as AIDS. The infections associated with AIDS are called "opportunistic" because they take advantage of the body's weakened immune system. It is the opportunistic infection, and not AIDS, that causes death.
Information from Health Canada
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What is the social impact of AIDS?
AIDS overtaxes social systems and impedes the health and educational development that enables poor people (especially children) to escape poverty.
Life expectancy has plummeted by 20 years in some countries and the number of orphans is expected to more than double by 2010. This will pose unprecedented social welfare demands for countries already burdened by vast development challenges. Whole families dissolve as the parents die and children and dependent elderly are dispersed to others that might care for them.
In education, teachers and students are dying or leaving school, reducing both the quality and efficiency of educational systems. Health care systems in many countries are stretched beyond their limits as they deal with a growing number of AIDS patients and the loss of health personnel. Women in general, and girls in particular, are more vulnerable to HIV and are disproportionately affected by the epidemic. They bear the greatest burden of care. Families remove girls from school to care for sick relatives or assume family responsibilities, thereby jeopardizing recent gains in female health, nutrition and education. This has an especially detrimental impact on girls' own development and leaves them more vulnerable to the epidemic.
Girls who have not completed their schooling are less likely to obtain the earning power to increase their economic independence, and more likely to resort to transactional sex in order to survive. Reduced education for women also impedes national development.
Information from UNAIDS
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What is the economic impact of AIDS?
Because AIDS kills people in the prime of their working and parenting lives, it represents a grave threat to development. By reducing growth, weakening governance, destroying human capital, discouraging investment, and eroding productivity, AIDS erodes the foundations on which countries seek to develop their societies and improve living standards. In the worst-affected countries, the epidemic has already reversed many of the development achievements of the past generation. Now, AIDS threatens to thwart the hopes of the next.
AIDS has a pronounced impact on growth, incomes, and poverty. Although different estimates exist, the World Bank calculates that AIDS may now be costing 24 African countries 0.5% to 1.2% of per capita growth each year. In some countries, conservative estimates indicate that the number of people living in poverty has already increased by 5% as a result of the epidemic.
Governments are suffering a drain on skills, reduced revenues, lower return on social investment, and reduced national security - while facing vast expenses on health and orphan care. Businesses of all types face higher costs in training, insurance, benefits, absenteeism, and illness. Reports are common of health care costs rising five- or tenfold within a few years. AIDS is reducing the ratio of healthy workers to dependents and may cut productivity growth by as much as 50% in the hard-hit countries. In households, AIDS is impoverishing entire families as income-earners grow sick and die and families sell all their assets for care and for funerals. In agriculture, food security is lost as there are fewer people to tend the fields and fewer to pass on their skills to the next generation.
Information from UNAIDS
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How many children have been orphaned by AIDS?
By the end of 2004, an estimated 15 million children had lost one or both parents to AIDS—the vast majority in Africa—and many millions more were affected. Risk factors such as missed opportunities for education, ill health, abuse and exploitation threaten their most fundamental rights and keep them enmeshed in poverty. The pandemic is deepening poverty in entire communities and societies, with children often being the first to feel the brunt of the deprivation.
Information from UNAIDS
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What role do antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) play in containing the AIDS epidemic?
ARVs can increase people's quality of life, allowing them to work again and support their families. However, the World Health Organization estimates only 700,000 of the 5.8 million people in need of ARV therapy have access to it. In Africa, only 8 percent of people in need of treatment are receiving it. The biggest barrier is cost.
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