One of my former students, Katy Glenn, is working in South Africa and sent me the following post on the ongoing AIDS pandemic:

There is much talk here about HIV/AIDS, especially after the release of a major study on the epidemic like the update just published by UNAIDS.  The discussion generally focuses on whether AIDS prevention campaigns are working, how to make anti-retroviral drugs accessible to more people, and why Thabo Mbeki's government continues to take such a perplexing, and often infuriating, approach to combating the disease's spread throughout South Africa's population.  There is less attention paid, however, to what HIV/AIDS means in terms of the continent's security.  

Africa's AIDS crisis has dealt a severe blow to its militaries.  UNAIDS estimates that the HIV prevalence rate in African militaries is two to five times the rate among the comparable civilian population in times of peace, and far higher during an ongoing conflict.   This is a chilling statistic under any circumstances, but especially when the stunningly high rates of HIV/AIDS prevalence in Africa are taken into account.  In sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV prevalence rate among adults aged 15-49 is 7.2%.  In Southern Africa specifically, the numbers are higher still:  21% in Zimbabwe and a devastating 29.5% in South Africa.   Studies have shown that the armed forces in Angola, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda have much higher rates of infection than the general population.   AIDS is the leading cause of death among members of Africa's armed forces--outstripping both combat and malaria.

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