Fwd: [AIDSsoc] Aids Data

[Guest guest]

>Facpat

>Mon, 8 Dec 2003 13:49:52 EST

>Fwd: [AIDSsoc] Aids Data

>Facpat

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>The piece below was published in the letter section of Daily Nation

>of Monday,Dec. 8 2003. The Daily Nation is has the largest

>circulation in Kenya. The truth is coming out, even from non

>dissidents.

>

>Letter

>Monday, December 8, 2003

>----

>Aids data: Most of it is lies,

>damned lies and statistics

>HIV/Aids has truly impacted on the lives of each one of us in one way

>or another and the fight must be won.

>Up-to-date facts and figures are a prerequisite in any effective

>communication on most subjects, and HIV/Aids is no exception.

>

>Seven hundred Kenyans dying every day, three in five minutes,

>prevalence rates, and rates of incidence are common terms to us. Such

>data is bandied around with such adroitness and vigour that sometimes

>it is as if we are fighting a series of mathematical algorithms

>rather than an actual virus.

>

>Whilst there is value in using numbers to describe phenomena, it is

>essential that when we do so, we understand exactly what these

>figures represent.

>

>It was former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who once

>said: " There are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies and

>statistics " .

>

>This could not be truer for some of the so-called " facts " hurled at

>us by reputable experts and international agencies in the build-up to

>World Aids Day.

>

>In the Sunday Nation of November 30, Arthur Okwemba quoted the

>Executive Director of an Aids support group from Uganda claiming that

>there has been a fall in HIV prevalence in Uganda " from more than 30

>per cent in 1995 to nearly 5 per cent today " .

>

>This translated in real terms, means that of the 23 million

>inhabitants of Uganda, almost seven million were HIV positive in 1995

>and eight years later, the figure stands at slightly more than one

>million.

>

>This means that there are six million less HIV positive Ugandans

>today than in 1995. If you factor in the Ugandans who acquired the

>virus after 1995, this leaves a simply enormous body of people who

>are no longer HIV positive. What has happened to the Ugandans who do

>not appear in the latest figures? Did they leave Uganda, die or were

>they cured of HIV?

>

>If the prevalence figures are inverted, it does not say much for

>Uganda's widely commended HIV/Aids response if it is unable to

>prevent the deaths of 800,000 HIV positive people a year.

>

>In Kenya, it has been stated that HIV/Aids had, by 1998, reduced life

>expectancy by 13 years to only 51. Taking HIV prevalence in Kenya of

>12 per cent and applying a simple weighted average, it is easily

>proved that this assertion is a mathematical impossibility. In fact,

>for such a drop in life expectancy to be caused by HIV alone, HIV

>positive Kenyans would have to have a life expectancy of minus 44

>years. That is, they would have been dead a whole two generations

>before they were born! We cannot be so foolish as to use baseless and

>incongruous statistics in our arguments.

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>Even the great UN, in its much quoted Aids Epidemic Update released

>recently, makes statements that, on closer inspection, are

>questionable.

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>It is simply not good enough to use tests on pregnant women taken in

>antenatal clinics as the main source for raw data used to estimate

>national prevalence in the way the UNAids study has.

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>People tested in antenatal clinics are, by the very fact they are

>women who have had unprotected sex, a high-risk group. The argument

>presented in the Epidemic Update in justifying the assumptions made

>by the UN in producing their estimates using this method is both weak

>and flawed.

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>What is needed is a wide reaching and aggressive campaign to derive

>comprehensive and accurate figures on the scourge that will allow us

>to plan our response based on knowledge and not conjecture.

>

>MATTHEW BLACK,

>Kenya Aids Watch Institute.

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