It is urgent to "save Africa" from AIDS. For the first time, an African
policy-maker analyses the pandemic in depth, describing its dynamics
and raising new questions and new issues. The stakes are high: the future
of Africa and its development depend on the answers. In this appeal,
Urbain Olanguena Awono underlines the importance of international action
for universal access to prevention and treatment.
Overcoming this challenge demands major investments, ever increasing
human and financial resources and a permanent political commitment.
To reverse the course of the epidemic, the author recommends the idea
of a "social vaccine" that calls on the responsibility of African leaders
and African communities. Today we must defy the taboos and break
with some sociocultural factors likely to nourish new infections.
The Cameroonian Minister of Health pleads for an "inculturation"
of the combat against this disease that is deconstructing the economic
and social tissue of the continent and risks condemning it.
