last day of class!

We started our last day of class early this morning – 7:30 a.m. – perhaps a first for these college students!  We continued our discussion on HIV/AIDS.  Zambia is considered a “high” prevalence country based on HIV testing done in different populations.  In 2008 there were around 40 million people in the world living with HIV (up from 2 or 3 million in 1986).  There are about 14,000 new HIV infections a day.   More than 95% are in low and middle income countries.   Almost 2,000 are in children under 15 years of age.  Sub-Saharan Africa bears the greatest burden of HIV in the world.  Life expectancy in Zambia at birth is estimated around 34 years old.  Thankfully, deaths from AIDS have declined, largely due to free ARV drugs paid for by the Global Fund and PEPFAR, President Bush’s initiative to help with the AIDS crisis.

In Zambia, instead of saying this is “the tip of the iceberg” they say it is the “the ears of the hippo” because most people here don’t know what an iceberg is!   There is nearly a 10-year gap between being infected and being symptomatic.  Therefore, there is a huge population of asymptomatic people who continue to transmit the virus because they feel fine.  Of all the people infected, only about 10% at any time have recognizable AIDS.  This is part of what makes this virus and disease so insidious. 

I’ll be completely honest and say that today’s class included a lot of microbiology terminology (e.g. protease, nucleoside-like, transcriptase, to name just a few!) and diagrams that I could barely make sense of (being the one non-science person in the group!).  Suffice it to say, the HIV virus is very complex and nasty.

Our class was broken up into two different sections today due to some prior commitments Dr. Thuma had to attend to.  During our mid-afternoon break, many of us wandered back into town, some spent the entire time shelling peanuts, while others got a head start on studying for Monday's final.  When class resumed in the late afternoon, we continued our discussion on HIV/AIDS and its causes, presentation, and treatment.

After yet another yummy dinner, we spent the evening playing that old youth group game “four on a couch” and then watched “As Good As It Gets,” a movie most of us found hilarious, others not so much (ahem, KENNY!).  But it was still very fun to spend a relaxing evening together.

Tomorrow is our last Saturday in Africa!  Many of us are happily living in denial, wanting to never leave.