Poverty and HIV/AIDS

Since the first clinical evidence of HIV/AIDS was reported about 20 years ago, it has spread to every corner of the country and indeed the whole world. Still rapidly growing, the epidemic is reversing development gains, robbing millions of their lives, widening the gap between the rich and the poor and undermining social and economic security.

Poverty and HIV/AIDS are positively co-related. Poverty reduction can help limit peoples vulnerability to the epidemic. By killing so many people in the prime of their lives, AIDS poses a great threat to development; reducing growth, weakening governance, destroying human capital, discouraging investment and eroding productivity, it undermines countries’ efforts to reduce poverty and improve living standards. It has a profound impact on income and growth. People at all levels are vulnerable to the economic impact of HIV/AIDS but the poor suffer most acutely. AIDS pushes the poor deeper into poverty as households lose their breadwinners to the scourge. Livelihoods are compromised and savings are consumed by the cost of care.

AIDS affects both the poor and rich citizens in both developing and developed countries. It is not a disease of poverty, but the epidemic pushes the poor deeper into poverty making it more difficult for them to sustain or recover to their earlier livelihoods. This in turn makes them more vulnerable.

In most societies, women and girls face heavier risks of HIV infection than men do because their diminished economic and social status compromises their ability to chose safer and healthier lifestyles and economic strategies.

With less access to jobs, healthcare and other services, impoverished people are more likely to resort to commercial sex and other survival strategies that can put them at a high risk of contracting the disease, thus, creating a viscous cycle of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Like a time bomb, the ranks of people acquiring the virus swells in a geometric progression fashion.