The future of AIDS and the ethics of seclusion in the face of an impending danger

Abstract

"The burden of this pandemic is an economic nightmare for an economy already in distress, where approximately 50% of the people live in extreme poverty. Africa's only hope is that other nations come to her aid, acting out of concern, respect for human dignity or whatever moral code. Over the years, however, the AIDS situation in Africa has worsened to catastrophic levels, without much being done to arrest it, because many in the affluent world "looked upon assistance to Africa as charity that [they] had a right to offer or withhold" (2) and not their moral duty. The 1990s have seen the commitments of many donors decline and become increasingly sporadic reducing to only a trickle (3). Aid levels have dropped relative to the growth of HIV; lack of finance is now said to be the primary constraint against progress against AIDS (3). With four-fifths of the world's wealth, and only 5% of the world's HIV cases, the question is: how do developed nations continue to allow such great human suffering, without doing anything that could significantly reduce it?"(pg 17)