Global Health- South Africa

South Africa

Adversity

Global Health and Policy Issues

Brenda Roberson

UMUC

Abstract

South Africa is the only nation or state that is named after its geograpic location. South Africa is a nation of divirsity with a population of 5.2 million. It has been called the “Rainbow Nation” because of the wide variety of languages, cultures, and religious beliefs (1). South Africa recognises eleven languages as official to the country, community leaders include rabbis, chieftains and presidents (5). Religious practices include: Christian, Pentecostal, Cathoic, Methodist, Dutch Reformed, Hinduism and Islam. (2) It is expected that Africa will have the greatest increase in population rate in the world by 2050, even taking into account the estimated numbers for AIDS related deaths (Holtz, 2013) Adversity and diversity, two words that come to mind when speaking of South Africa. Adversity, South Africa has lived through a rule of a white minority government that enforced the separation of races with its policy called Aparteid. Black Africans were forced out of designated white areas of the city to rural townships to live in poverty with out healthcare or social support systems and under repressive laws. In 1994 democracy prevailed and the apartheid was overturned. But, extreme poverty, violence and inequality left many Africans to remain poor, uneducated and unemployed and living in extreme poverty and unbearable conditions. In 2005 South Africa had the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world. The president of South Africa, Mbeki denied that there was a link between HIV and AIDS and HIV/AIDS transmittion between mother and child at birth, he claimed that the Western World was just about drug profits, and he refused to broker for the antiviral drugs available to fight the HIV epidemic that was rampid in South Africa (2). Health care in South Africa continues to be inadequate, a two tiered system that is inequitable and inaccessible to a large portion...