AU advocates general health systems improvement.

(From Panafrican News Agency (PANA) Daily Newswire)

Byline: Peter Masebu, PANA Staff Correspondent

Sal, Cape Verde (PANA) - The African Union's interim chairman, Amara Essy, warned Wednesday that controlling the spiral of HIV/AIDS in the continent will be impossible without country-wide improvements to health systems.

Essy said this in a speech delivered on his behalf by an AU official at the ongoing conference of African women ministers and parliamentarians, which entered its second day at this Cape Verdian resort township of 14,000 people.

He told the four-day session that the pandemic had emerged on a background of poor and unhealthy populations due to a series of political, economic and social problems, which afflicted many African countries. These included low levels of economic development, natural disasters, poverty, economic instability and civil wars.

Essy told delegates from 43 African states: "On a background of poor and unhealthy populations, the emergency of HIV/AIDS found a fertile ground to spread unhindered. Tuberculosis, which is closely associated with HIV/AIDS, resurged and once more, became epidemic as did malaria."

"The impact of the disease on all socio-economic sectors has become the biggest threat to the continent's development and its quest to bring about an economic Renaissance," he added.