Why the Africans distrust Western medicine?

The article that I read this week is " Why the Africans distrust Western medicine ". This article interests me a lot because for decades America is seen as the most advanced country-in terms of technology, medicine and many other things.

Why the Africans distrust Western medicine? Well, this will bring us back to the groundbreaking news in May 2004. A medical worker, who in May 2004, intentionally infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV virus. This worker supposedly was sentenced to death but was freed couples of weeks ago.

Unfortunate incidents were not new. For example, In march 2000, Werner Bezwoda, a cancer researcher at South Africa's Witwatersrand University, was fired after conducting medical experiments involving very high doses of chemotherapy on black breast-cancer patients, possibly without their consent. The most notorious one is Dr Wouter Basson,a former head of Project Coast, was charged with killing of hundreds of blacks in South Africa and Namibia, from 1979 to 1987, many via injected poisons. The worst part of it was that he was never convicted in South African courts, even though his lieutenants testified in detail and with consistency on the medical crimes they conducted against blacks.

Such article really saddens me because given the technology the world has today, such incidents should not have happened at all. Such tragedies highlight the challenges facing even the ost idealistic medical workers, who can find themselves working under unhygienic conditions that threathen patients' welfare. Well-meaning Western caregivers must sometimes use incompletely cleaned or unsterilised needles, simply because nothing else is available. These needles can and do spread infectious agents like HIV-proving that Western medical practices need not be intentional to be deadly. A 2003 study in The International journal of STD and Aids found that as many as 40% of HIV infections in Africa are caused by contaminated needles during medical treatment.

The distrust of Western medical of workers has had direct consequences. Since 203., for example, polio has been on the rise in Nigeria, Chad and Burkina Faso because many people avoid vaccinations, believing that the vaccines are contaminated with HIV or are actuallty sterilisation agents in disguise.

I feel that the world should pay more attentions to these third world countries. The people there face poverty and rampant diseases, but yet they have no one to turn to. The thought of relying on advanced countres was no longer true. Thus, it is important that we approach Africans' suspicions with respect, realising that they are facing a shortage of RELIABLE medical care.