1960s to 2010s · Africanspan
Vaccination cuts infant deaths while the schools lose their money
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After independence most African governments put money into schools, primary enrolment rose sharply, and there was deliberate effort to get girls into classrooms. The gains were uneven and then partly reversed. Adult illiteracy south of the Sahara is higher than in any other region of the world, the economic crisis that began in the 1970s cut state education budgets, and the gap between boys and girls is widest in the countryside. Health followed a similar curve. Malaria remains the heaviest disease burden on the continent and sleeping sickness was spreading again by the 1990s. More than two thirds of the world's HIV cases are African, with about 34 million people infected since the early 1980s and over 11 million dead, concentrated in the east and the south. Illness tracks poverty, thin food, bad sanitation and dirty water. Clinics decayed and trained staff left for better pay abroad. Vaccination programmes still cut infant mortality sharply after the 1960s and life expectancy rose, which shows what small sums can buy.
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