Author:

Arvind Singhal
W. Stephen Howard

Date of publication:

2003

Published by:

Center for International Studies, Ohio University

ARC Catalog Number:

HC4.441C.S5

Description:

AIDS is now the leading cause of death in Africa, where twenty-eight million people are HIV positive, and where some twelve million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. In Zimbabwe, 45 percent of children under the age of five are HIV positive, and the epidemic has shortened life expectancy by twenty-two years. A fifteen-year-old in Botswana or South Africa has one-in-two chance of dying of AIDS. AIDS deaths are so wide-spread in sub-Saharan Africa that small children now play a new game called “Funerals.”

The Children of Africa Confront AIDS depicts the realities of how African children deal with the AIDS pandemic. Singhal, Howard, and contributors for many disciplines and agencies draw on compelling personal experiences, interviews, and thoughtful research in describing HIV/AIDS interventions for children. Their insights suggest possibilities for hope and progress in this alarming African public health crisis.