Mainly because of the AIDS pandemic, life expectancy at birth has plummeted across these countries. A person born today can expect to live to age 35 in Botswana and Lesotho, 47 in South Africa and Namibia, 38 in Zambia, 37 in Zimbabwe and only 31 in Swaziland. Something must be done and that something, I believe, is breaking the silence that surrounds the disease. But we are talking about it and taking action, you might argue. True, there is a lot of public rhetoric attached to HIV/AIDS, but we are silent where it matters most - we are silent about our own status, particularly at the level of top leadership in SADC countries.
The stigma attached to this disease has never been clear to me. In Africa, HIV/AIDS is truly democratic - it affects people of all classes and races and of both sexes. We are all susceptible. We all know someone who is either HIV positive, or has full-blown AIDS, or has died from the disease. We share the pain. So, what's the big deal? Why can we not openly share the experience? Yet, in most rural areas, people who need treatment are afraid to go to clinic, knowing that their neighbours will point fingers and say 'that one has the slimming disease, he/she must be shunned'.
