Africa is a Country

The Washington Post editorial board:

While on a flight to Cameroon on Tuesday to begin a weeklong journey through Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said, “You can’t resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.” In a perfect world, people would abstain from having sex until they were married or would be monogamous in committed relationships. But the world isn’t perfect — and neither is Pope Benedict’s pronouncement on the effectiveness of condoms in the battle against HIV/AIDS. The evidence says so … According to UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa is the epidemic’s center, with 67 percent of the world’s 32.9 million people with HIV and with 75 percent of all AIDS deaths. Heterosexual intercourse is the “driving force” of the epidemic … What the pontiff said was especially discordant to us coming a day after the District’s HIV/AIDS Administration released its startling survey showing that 3 percent of this city’s residents are living with HIV/AIDS. UNAIDS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define a “severe” epidemic in a specific area as at least 1 percent of the population being infected. To halt the march of HIV/AIDS, those who have the infection must be treated. Those who do not have it need all the information and tools possible to remain HIV-negative. The pope’s denunciation of condoms is of no help.