CAPE TOWN – HIV/AIDS is having a devastating effect on food security in Africa with families reducing their food intake as the first strategy to cope with the increased financial burden of caring for a sick and dying family member.

Dr Emmanuel Ariga of Kenya’€™s Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development told delegates at the 2nd African Conference on Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research that the disease was also robbing people of the energy and initiative for food production.

Based on United Nations’ estimates, the disease has killed seven million African farmers, hindering food production throughout the continent.

The disease also makes it difficult for families to acquire adequate food, resulting in the sale of livestock or other assets in order to care for the sick or pay funeral expenses.

Ariga listed a number of studies that had shown the effect of the epidemic on households and their access to food. Evidence in Namibia indicated the widespread sale and slaughter of livestock to support the sick to feed mourners.

A study in Uganda found that 65% of the AIDS affected households were obliged to sell property to pay for care.

In Zimbabwe maize production in households with an AIDS death was reduced by 61% whereas cotton, vegetables and groundnut production declined by 47, 49 and 37% respectively.

Ariga said it was also widely known that impoverished wives sent their children away, often to earn as living as commercial sex workers.

A study in Uganda confirmed that food insecurity and malnutrition was more rampant in female-headed AIDS-affected households. In Burkina Faso women ate less protein and fewer micronutrients than men did. Women consumed 0,8g of animal protein per day compared to 10,3g consumed by men.

Ariga pointed to the urgent need to devise interventions. These included novel agricultural methods such as drip irrigation systems that reduced labour needed for irrigation by 50% or micro-financing schemes that could incorporate a mandatory insurance fee to cover the outstanding costs of borrowers who die.

Another presenter, Dr Adiya Fatou, of Mali said that people who were not eating well would not adhere to anti-retroviral drug regimes.

‘€œSomeone who has nothing to eat will also easily succumb to prostitution, adding to the rapid spread of the virus. There is no doubt that HIV aggravates poverty leading to malnutrition and rapid progression to AIDS,’€ she added.

In South Africa the Taylor Committee of Inquiry found that in 2000 at least 45% of the South African population lived in absolute poverty (defined as less than R14 per day).

About 75 percent of children in South Africa live in poverty according to a 1999 Household Survey. This equates to about 14 million children under the age of 18 years.

The Children’€™s Institute at the University of Cape Town has also argued that levels of poverty in South African were also worsening.