Alcohol kills more than AIDS and TB

"Alcohol is taking a heavy toll on national economies and health – destroying lives by way of domestic violence and road accidents, prompting other forms of violence including child abuse, and compromising business productivity"

Alcohol is a ‘contributor’ to hiv infection. While inebriated, people’s judgement is impaired and they do things they normally would not do.
They can be forgetful about such vital matters as condom usage. These two factors – a lack of inhibition and carelessness while overindulging in alcohol – has led to the spread of HIV where it otherwise might not have gone.
But what of the use of alcohol itself?
This week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) shed a revealing light on the dangers posed by alcohol use.
Most startling, alcohol causes nearly 4 % of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or man-made causes such as violence committed towards people. WHO has noted that as formerly poor people rise out of poverty, one of the results is they purchase and consume more alcohol.
Rising incomes have triggered more drinking in heavily populated countries in Africa and Asia, including India and South Africa, and binge drinking is a problem in many developed countries. Out of control binge drinking mixed with opportunity for sex is a deadly combination in the age of AIDS. Alcohol is taking a heavy toll on national economies and health – destroying lives by way of domestic violence and road accidents, prompting other forms of violence including child abuse, and compromising business productivity because of some workers’ absenteeism from the job. But despite this, “alcohol control policies,” as the WHO calls these, “remain a low priority for most governments.”
In a report released this week entitled, “Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health,” the WHO finds that about 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol related causes.
Youth are the population demographic most in danger of contracting HIV. Just as they become active sexually, they are at the age to start drinking. The connection between alcohol abuse and dangerous sexual activity that leads to AIDS is noted in the WHO report. "The harmful use of alcohol is especially fatal for younger age groups and alcohol is the world's leading risk factor for death among males aged 15-59," the report found.
Binge drinking, which the WHO links to AIDS-inducing risky behaviour, is now prevalent in Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine, and rising elsewhere, according to the WHO. Men are four times more likely to be heavy drinkers than women. Amongst all drinkers the number of heavy drinkers or binge drinkers is quite high, over one in 10. “Worldwide, about 11 % of drinkers have weekly heavy episodic drinking occasions, with men outnumbering women by four to one. Men consistently engage in hazardous drinking at much higher levels than women in all regions," the WHO report said.
Last year in May, the health ministers from all of WHO's 193 member states agreed to try to curb binge drinking and other growing forms of excessive alcohol use through higher taxes on alcoholic drinks and tighter marketing restrictions.
One of the most effective ways to curb drinking, especially among young people, is to raise taxes, the report said. Setting age limits for buying and consuming alcohol, and regulating alcohol levels in drivers, also reduce abuse if enforced. This week as the WHO report was released, word came from Swaziland’s ministry of finance that a heavier tax on alcoholic beverages is imminent. It’s not just AIDS that is a worry for drinkers.
The WHO found that alcohol is a “causal factor” (that is, it is the reason why a person contracts a disease) in 60 types of diseases and injuries. Drinking alcohol has been medically linked to cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, poisonings, road traffic accidents, violence, and several types of cancer, including cancers of the colorectum, breast, larynx and liver. Evidence of alcohol’s linkage to these diseases has been gathered in recent years. It’s no longer anecdotal that women who drink heavily can develop breast cancer. The proof is there. What keeps Swaziland from suffering even more from alcohol related problems is that the population is less able to purchase expensive alcoholic beverages than people living in developed countries.
The heaviest drinking occurs in the developed world. Alcohol abuse is the highest in Russia.
However, homemade and home brewed alcohol is a cheap and available alternative, and 30% of the total consumption of alcohol in the world comes from the home brewing of illegal and traditional drinks.
There is no word yet from the ministry of finance whether there would be a tax on the commercial sale of home-brewed tjwala and buganu.
Alcohol has health benefits
We must distinguish between normal consumption of alcohol and binge drinking or alcohol abuse.
The WHO points out that light to moderate drinking can have a beneficial impact on heart disease and stroke. A glass of red wine, for instance, is known to reduce the risk of heart disease. “However, the beneficial cardio-protective effect of drinking disappears with heavy drinking occasions,” states the WHO report.

16 February, 2011 with James Hall
http://www.observer.org.sz/index.php?news=21187