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Stuck between AIDS and diarrhea |
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My girlfriend is in Pakistan right now, working on a project that, she hopes, will allow even the poorest people in urban areas of developing countries to have clean drinking water and avoid debilitating diarrhea. But a story of water-borne disease in Botswana shows how basic the need for clean water is, and how accessibility affects attemts to stop AIDS. An article on ScienceNOW by Jon Cohen describes how in Botswana, mothers with HIV were told to use formula to avoid passing the virus on to their children, and this recommendation had its own disastrous effects: ... a study of a deadly outbreak of diarrheal disease in children under 5 in that southern African country has found that infant formula, as compared to breast-feeding, increased a child's risk of death by 50 times, likely because of contaminated water used to make the formula. In 2005, a third of the pregnant women in Botswana were infected with HIV, making it one of the hardest-hit countries in the world. Previous studies have shown that breast-feeding, depending on how long it's done, accounts for 5% to 20% of the transmissions from infected mother to their children. To help curb such transmission rates, the Botswanan government advised in 1998 that all HIV-infected women use infant formula as part of a comprehensive strategy that also included the use of anti-HIV drugs during labor and delivery. The formula recommendation goes a step beyond World Health Organization (WHO) advice, which cautions that HIV-infected women should use formula only when it is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable, and safe.
What's the cause of the contaminated water? Creek suspects that the severe flooding in Botswana in 2005 contributed to the outbreak by increasing the levels of microorganisms in the water supply. Because Botswanan mothers use this water to make infant formula, the "safety [of infant formula] may vary dramatically with the weather," Creek warned.
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