Poverty, Parasitosis and HIV/AIDS - Major Health Concerns in Tanzania

Poverty, parasitosis and HIV/AIDS are closely interlinked and co-circulate in many populations. HIV/AIDS, parasitic infections like malaria and other opportunistic infections, and in a few are by far the commonest causes of ill-health and death in the poorest countries of the world, that happen to be in the tropics and temperate countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. Parasitic infections remain an important cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries especially among HIV-infected persons. There are indications that HIV-1 (the most prevalent in Tanzania) interacts significantly with many other parasitic infections within individual hosts, but the population-level impacts of co-infection are not well-characterized. Among those parasitic opportunistic infections, Cryptosporidum parvum, Isospora belli, Cyclospora cayetanensis and Microspordia species frequent causes of diarrhea. Likewise, Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia and Candida species infections have been implicated in life threatening fungal infections among people living with HIV/AIDS. In this chapter, poverty is defined as a state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions. Poverty can be caused by unemployment, low education, deprivation and homelessness. Lack of health facilities and low-cost healthy foods, along with public space for physical activities, may be among the factors that contribute to poor health and even higher risk of death due to curable diseases among patients who live in poverty. HIV/AIDS deepens poverty and increases inequalities at every level, household, community, regional and sectoral. The HIV/AIDS epidemic undermines efforts at poverty reduction, income and asset distribution, productivity and economic growth resulting in reverse progress of development targets. Certainly, there is relationship between poverty and the development of epidemics of communicable diseases and at the same time epidemic diseases, like any illness, have the potential to increase poverty. The impact of HIV/AIDS and poverty on children has different dimensions that include children being deprived of education to care for sick adults, thus compromising their basic right to education, placing the household at further long-term risk for poverty that may take decades to reverse. Illiteracy and/or lack of skills also appear to influence vulnerability to HIV infection. A correlation between educational qualifications and HIV infection exists, which indicates that people with formal educational qualifications acquire economic independence and threfore do not engage in risky behaviors as compared to those without it.