| Abstract |
South Africa is hard hit by the HIV epidemic which is infecting more than 1500 people per day. At Johannesburg's biggest hospitals, forty to fifty percent of the beds are occupied by patients with AIDS-related infections It is estimated that one fourth of the population will be affected soon. The history of social and economic division that still continues in South Africa is reflected in the way the disease has spread. Poor black women in the townships get only inferior mixtures of AZT to prevent their babies from being born infected. They do not get the information necessary to prevent infection. The disease is not confined to the poor, for affluent whites are also affected by HIV. We hear from patients, social workers, medical experts and government policy makers on the magnitude of the problem. |
