AIDS Greatest Threat to Life in Africa: George McGovern

On Wednesday, the US ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the spread of AIDS is the greatest threat to life in Africa and will kill more people on the continent than a terrorist attack on any scale. "It is really a form of terrorism that will destroy more lives than have been destroyed in any attack of the kind that just took place in the United States," said George McGovern. South Africa is the country with the highest HIV rate in the world, with 4.7 million people infected at the end of last year, according to government figures.

McGovern, who has just completed a fact-finding mission to Ethiopia, Senegal and South Africa, also labeled the pandemic the enemy of food security in Africa. "AIDS is the greatest threat to food security, and the biggest problem facing this continent. It's like a runaway freight train ripping across the continent, killing people on all sides." He said the inverse relation between the spread of HIV and food production was illustrated by the AIDS deaths of 7 million agricultural workers worldwide in the past 15 years. Recalling last week's terrorist attacks on the United States, McGovern told reporters, "As bad as that tragedy is, and it certainly was terrible, AIDS is a much greater threat to the lives of people on this continent."

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