Angola AIDS Watch

All sub-Saharan African countries in this era have a great concern about the effects and destruction that the AIDS virus causes on their own individual societies. (This region has some 22.5 million people with HIV- the highest percentage in any region worldwide).  Angola's worries concerning the spread of this are not unfounded especially as the government opens the borders and interior with massive reconstruction.

Recently, the Angolan Health Minster stated that though "27 years of civil war in Angola caused much bloodshed and destruction, the corresponding isolation served as a protection against the deadly AIDS virus which now threatens to spread across the country."  With the reconstruction of roads and bridges, the threat of AIDS in Angola may worsen with the facilitation of the movement of people from neighboring countries: 20% of the neighboring Namibia population is infected with HIV.

Currently only 2.1% of Angolans are HIV positive.  But in the southern Cunene province which borders Namibia, some 16% of the inhabitants carry the virus.  Other provinces bordering or near the Republic of Congo in the far north of Angola have also shown steady increases in the number of AIDS cases.

Though the Angolan government has pledges multiple billions of dollars towards the education and fight against the spread of AIDS, I am hopeful that the Evangelical National Church in Angola will have an impact in changing the lifestyles and mindset against the personal actions that spread the HIV virus.