HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to threaten the social, economic and political security of millions of people on the continent. HIV/AIDS is the leading infectious disease threat in the world today, outpacing the two next most important infectious diseases, tuberculosis and malaria, two to one. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS after lying quiet in an individual for seven to ten years, currently infects 42 million people worldwide. By the end of 2002, the disease had already killed 28 million people, and an estimated 3 million people now die from the disease each year. This is 8,200 per day, almost three times the number who died in the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001.
On the day that you read this, an estimated 12,000 people worldwide will contract HIV. Ninety percent of them, about 10,800 people will not learn they are infected until full-blown AIDS hits them — in 2015. Until then, those people will unintentionally spread the virus that lies silently within each of them. These numbers are about faces and lives, about lost potential, and about the need for holistic solutions that translates our fears into hopes.
For more information contact James E. Copple or Colleen K. Copple of The Servant Forge:
James E. Copple — jcopple@sai-dc.com
Colleen K. Copple — ccopple@sai-dc.com
