AIDS+and+Africa+2

=**AIDS and Africa**= by Nathalie Stachowicz

40 million people have AIDS worldwide and 23.4 million of them live in Africa. More and more people are getting AIDS. In 2006 more people died because of AIDS, than in any previous year. However AIDS in Africa seems to be disappearing gradually. The majority of the people infected with the virus are female.

__AIDS in Malawi__
Poverty is not the only problem they have to worry about in Malawi. After curing most of the tuberculosis patients, AIDS has taken its place. Since 1985 the population of Malawi infected with AIDS has decreased, but AIDS still has a significant impact of the size of the population. In some villages 40%-60% of the citizens are currently dying from AIDS, and 70% percent of the hospital beds are taken by AIDS infected people. The lifespan fell from 45 years to 39 years ever since 1995. Soon people will not recognize older generation.

media type="youtube" key="FoMQwBu5FHo&rel=1" height="355" width="425"

More than 400,000 children have lost their mother or father to AIDS and the number of orphans is rising every year. Grandparents, aunts and neighbors often can't take care of the orphans, so they end up homeless. Many families are more than over challenged because of the epidemic. In almost every case the oldest child of the family has to work to make money for his/her siblings. The children have to learn how to survive at a very young age. School is often forgotten in these cases. Already one to two orphans live in every 5th household in Malawi. Young girls and widows have to dread sexual abuse, by which they can also get the virus and many children don't get the accommodation they need.

Now the government sends their people to teach the poor, small and even big villages or cities about AIDS. Often people don't know that they are carrying the virus for a long time until they are about to die. This is because most of the rural areas do not have any medical centers or, and this is the majority reason, because they don't know what AIDS is. The teaching helps a lot of people, but still not all of the villages know about the virus.

Bibliography http://www.synergyaids.com/documents/MAL_AIDS.pdf http://www.unicef.de/index.php?id=157 http://www.avert.org/aids-malawi.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoMQwBu5FHo [|http://www.santegidio.org/img/aids/bambini01.jp] http://www.aidsconcert.com/images/Kaartje%20Aids%20Afrika.JPG