African calamity
Sir: Paul Johnson's article, 'Time to stop chattering about Aids' (7 December), dis- misses Aids as a scare promoted by the homosexual lobby in order to extract money from the electorate. He advises silence on the subject, for heterosexuals `have nothing to fear'. The most he will concede is that Aids may 'play some minor role' in certain third world countries with `very high population increases'. Nonsense, Mr Johnson.
In Zambia, where I live, the transmission of Aids is at least 95 per cent either hetero- sexual or from mother to child. Of women attending maternity clinics some 25 per cent are found to be HIV infected, and the proportion is still rising. In this region of Africa, Aids is certainly comparable to the Black Death, which in 14th-century Eng- land killed at least a third of the popula- tion. There are three main reasons for the continuing spread of Aids in Zambia: 1. The virus often remains hidden for years before symptoms appear; 2. Promiscuity is very common; 3. So is fatalism.
How best to respond — education, con- doms, medical care — is open to debate. But the magnitude of the calamity is not. To see the worldwide Aids threat dismissed as fiction by a historian of Paul Johnson's standing is simply amazing, and very sad.
Murray Sanderson P 0 Box 20516, Kitwe,
Zambia
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