Central African Republic

Landlocked and Facing an Epidemic

True to its name, the CAR is located near the geographic center of the vast continent. Landlocked, CAR shares borders with Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and the Sudan. The flat to rolling mountainous plateau of CAR gives way to scattered hills in the northeast and southwest. Elevations range from 335 meters at the Oubangui River in the south to 1,420 meters at Mont Ngaoui in the northwest. The tropical climate produces hot, dry winters followed by mild to hot, wet summers. Floods are common throughout the country, and the north is subject to the harmattan, a seasonal hot, dry, and dusty wind that accelerates the pace of soil erosion and desertification.

The CAR population of 4,300,000 people suffers from an HIV/AIDS rate of 13.5 percent. By 2003, an estimated 23,000 deaths had occurred, and another 260,000 were living with HIV/AIDS. The people of CAR are susceptible to certain diseases due to the lack of potable water and proper sanitation. While three-fourths of urban residents have sustained access to safe drinking water, only 61 percent of rural residents do so. No more than 27 percent of urban and 12 percent of rural residents have access to improved sanitation. As a result, residents have a very high risk of contracting food and waterborne diseases, including bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever as well as malaria, a vectorborne disease, [Page 231]and meningococcal meningitis, a respiratory disease. Consequently, residents experience low life expectancy (43.54 years) and growth rates (1.53 percent) and high infant mortality (85.63 deaths per 1,000 live births) and death rates (18.65 deaths per 1,000). On the average, women produce 4.41 children. The low literacy rate (51 percent), particularly for females (39.9 percent), makes it extremely difficult to disseminate information on heath and environmental issues that might bring a halt to the cycle of disease and poverty.

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