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HIV/AIDS, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE –
NEW CHALLENGES AND APPROACH TO THE EPIDEMICS
Jozef Šuvada
Abstract
HIV/AIDS is aggravated by poor environment. AIDS blossoms when opportunistic
diseases set in and immunity breaks down. Poor environment leads to epidemics.
Sanitation and waste management systems are poorly designed and operated;
hence risks to tuberculosis, malaria, and typhoid are multiplied. Malaria cases
were five times those of HIV in 2002. Malaria is reported to have killed more than 10
million people in the past 40 years and yet most parasites are immune to malarial
drugs. There are many infectious agents which spread and input on the HIV-infected
population correlate with environment and with climate change most of
them change the face and could cause danger to the HIV-infected but also general
population. Among the factors and behaviours mentioned by many authors as encouraging
the spread of HIV/AIDS include social environments such as exposure to
globalisation, electronic media that distort local culture and values, gender violence,
conflicts, distorted beliefs and information on HIV/AIDS and STDs.
Key Words: HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, climate change, environment, resistance,
poverty, development
INTRODUCTION
Identifying possible interrelation between climate and HIV/AIDS might seem at
first glance, far fetched. But is it really so? One might form a different option
after reading this paper. Sceptics might also think that such topic would have no
policy or programmatic relevance. When we centred on the concept of hotspots,
in which climatic factors can play an important role, it begins to be clear that
certain aspects of climate are useful within the framework of an Early Warning
Rapic Response System (firstly described by UNDP in 2004) for HIV/AIDS. Thus,
early warning system for HIV/AIDS can produce synergies with other warning
systems, for example in agriculture and food security, which can also be climate
dependent. There has been published several papers focussing on agriculture and
its importance in HIV/AIDS epidemics, both in itself and in the context of rural
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