Thursday, December 15, 2005

Ignorance isn't so much bliss...

Only 10 percent of the world’s population lives in Africa, but it is home to 70 percent of the world’s HIV-infected people. As the HIV virus sweeps mercilessly across the African continent, only a few try to address it. Most simply look away.
To acknowledge that you have AIDS can mean certain death. A South African woman who told a televised audience on World AIDS Day was found beaten to death by family and fellow villagers six hours later.
Embarrassment about the sexually transmitted disease looms more important than future health risks. Families recoil in shame.
Most do not know how or when they caught the virus. Many never know they have it. And many who do know don’t tell. Doctors and obituaries don’t name it as a cause of death
-Africa's Hope

No comments:

Post a Comment