During the hour and a half that former Zambia president Kenneth David Kaunda spoke at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy Tuesday, almost 19 people in his native country died of AIDS, according to statistics Kaunda presented.
In the most recent installment of the biannual Karl von der Heyden Distinguished Visiting International Lecture series, the harsh reality of this statistic resonated throughout Kaunda's earnest yet hopeful words.
Kaunda, founder of The Kenneth Kaunda Children of Africa Foundation, presented his lecture, "The Challenges Facing African Development in the 21st Century: The Crisis of AIDS and AIDS-Affected Children" to over 150 people in Sanford's Fleishman Commons. The address was followed by a brief question and answer period.
"AIDS is the biggest crisis of the 21st century--one that greatly threatens African development," said Kaunda, who was elected as the first president of the Republic of Zambia in 1964. He remained in office for five terms, during which time he played a major role in opposing white-supremacist governments in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa and South-West Africa (now Namibia).
Kaunda's foundation, formed in 1990, seeks to educate Zambians and other Africans about the causes, risks and dangers of what he calls the continent's "silent plague." Fifteen million Africans have died of AIDS since the early 1980s, and another five million are currently infected--one million of which are children.
"But the people affected are not simple statistics and numbers," Kaunda said. "They are real people... who are in the prime of their lives and are the backbone of their families and of their nation."
Kaunda's own son died of the disease in 1986. The Zambia president was one of the first African leaders to speak openly about the growing epidemic.
Over 50 percent of HIV-infected children die by the age of two--evidence that Africans are denied access to proper nutrition and health care.
Kaunda said, however, that although advancements in AIDS research and medicine at universities like Duke are promising, procuring drugs for AIDS patients in Zambia is an impossibility.
"The cost of treating an AIDS patient is $1,000 a month," he said. "But the average income in Zambia is $200 a year. We want [medicine], we need [medicine], but we can't afford [medicine]."
Instead, Kaunda's Foundation stresses the importance of preventing the spread of the epidemic. Kaunda said his group provides support to AIDS orphans, teaches those most at risk about the dangers of sexual misconduct, provides job training to help snap the AIDS-poverty cycle and tries to eliminate the negativity currently associated with AIDS victims.
"There is a terrible stigma surrounding this disease," Kaunda said. "We must act now, lest it become too difficult to halt this downward spiral."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.