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 Badly affected countries are losing many of their valuable civil servants to AIDS; essential services are being depleted at the same time as state institutions and resources come under greater strain and traditional safety nets disintegrate.
In some countries, health-care systems are losing up to a 1/4 of their personnel to the epidemic. Schools are rapidly losing teachers to AIDS. In one year 500 teachers in the Amhara region of Ethiopia died from AIDS. 7 million African farm workers have died from AIDS-related causes since 1985 and 16 million more are expected to die in the next 20 years.
Companies of all types face higher costs in training, insurance, benefits, absenteeism and illness. A survey of 15 firms in Ethiopia has shown that, over a five-year period, 53% of all illnesses among staff were AIDS-related.
Studies in urban households of Cot d`Ivoire, for example, show that when a family member has AIDS, average income falls by 67%, while expenditures on health care quadruple.
People at all income levels are vulnerable to the economic impact of HIV/AIDS, but the poor suffer most acutely where 3/4 of the continent's people surviving on less than US$ 1 dollars a day.
A report from the Eye of Africa: AIDS beyond ABC indicated that 800 million Africans live on less then one dollar a day. The most vulnerable group are women, as a result, women are powerless in the face of such economic exploitation of commence high risk behavior to feed their kids and consequently the HIV prevalence rated in pregnant women remain high: 37.4% in Botswana, 26.2 % in south Africa, 13 % in Ethiopia, 22% in Namibia, 5.6% in Nigeria and 6.2% in Uganda.
1/4 of households in Botswana, where adult HIV prevalence is over 35%, can expect to lose an income earner within the next 10 years.
Per capita household income for the poorest quarter of households is expected to fall by 13%, and each income earner can expect to take on 4 more dependents due to AIDS/HIV.
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