The essence of the HIV/Aids debacle in South Africa is that it is not treated as a disease, but as a clash of perceptions. The scientific establishment has come up against struggle convictions which are not about people, but about rectifying the injustices of the past. The situation is worsened by the misplaced perception that the free handout of ARVs will solve the problem.
But there is a completely different, new, angle in the debate – the emergence of the non-infected. If the private sector is to survive, an alliance between its expertise and skills and the non-infected will be unavoidable. That may produce the technological innovation needed for a competitive advantage in the greater world economy and the capability to support the infected. Without an investment in the non-infected, society may grind to a halt.
Since 1990, HIV/Aids has caused a demographic distortion resulting in a meltdown of the population. By 2006, a new element was added: the rapid escalation of TB, accompanied by the introduction of Aids dementia, which is the impact of HIV infection, not on the immune system, but on the brain. Neither the public nor the politicians seem to grasp the implications of these developments.
Today’s society is defined by two major forces: a government in functional decay (due to a loss of expertise) and a population in meltdown. The population has already adopted an hourglass shape, with a declining middle sector. Society can’t supply government with human capital to restore functional decay, while government can’t reintroduce the necessary human capital into society. The private sector will increasingly have to come to the rescue.
To remain in business, commercial farming might eventually have to patrol our borders as neither the SA police service nor the defence force still has the capacity to do so. That leaves the country’s borders wide open to friend and foe and undermines government’s sovereignty.
In 2005, there were about 5, 5 million Aids sufferers with 1 500 new infections daily. By the end of 2008 over 7 million could be infected, to die in the next 10 years. Some 50% of the population could be directly affected as the untimely loss of productive people tears out the heart of society.
HIV/Aids is not only about people dying in large numbers. The relationship between HIV and political instability is indirect but real. In regions where is common, it destroys the very fabric of what constitutes a state – individuals, families, communities and political institutions. It even raises the possibility of a failed state and the need for massive international support.
ealth, education, security, as well as law and order are all key departments in a country. When these undergo functional decay, the rest of society is unlikely to remain intact. In so-called system contamination, negative outputs from one system compromise a completely different one. Without medical staff, teachers, engineers – in short, all the professional expertise that makes a nation function – a society in meltdown won’t be able to cope or turn things around. Aids has already ravaged the state’s health capabilities. There aren’t enough doctors, nurses, social workers, paramedics and ambulances. Hospitals are largely in disrepair.
The average HIV-affected household redirects its consumption from food to medicine. Girls are taken out of school to care for sick parents. School fees are redirected and children in affected families receive little education. In rural areas, where women are responsible for agriculture, the transfer of farming knowledge from mother to daughter is severed when mothers die, causing food shortages.
HIV/Aids impoverishes society at an incredible speed. The pandemic does not operate alongside society – it has become the inner workings of society. Soon, companies may have to take total responsibility for their own security, the health of their staff and their families, and perhaps much of their training and education.
A company’s only answer to the combination of HIV/Aids and TB lies in rapid technological innovation. Mining has already started moving in this direction. However, road transport is losing drivers faster than they can be replaced. The private security industry will face the same fate that crippled the police – their human capital comes from the same age group.
Current problems can no longer be fixed at the ballot box. Legislation can’t prevent the spreading of HIV-infection, only the right attitude can – and the people, for the moment, do not have it. – Roelof Bezuidenhout
E-mail Dr Jan du Plessis at [email protected] or call on (012) 460 6366. |fw
