[Politics_Observer]

Now here is something I am proud to see: the U.S. has done some good in Africa with a program that prevents the spread of AIDS. It has made a good impact too it seems.

Fourteen-year-old Philasande Dayimani carries a burden that no child should carry.

Last year, she started getting sores in her mouth and struggled to breathe. She says a clinic doctor told her to test for HIV.

“It wasn’t easy for me to accept. Many people cry when they hear about their status. I also cried,” she says, seated in her small shack in Tembisa, an informal settlement north of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Dressed in a crisp brown school uniform, she retreats behind a curtain to a bedroom and brings back a canvas shopping bag with three containers of pills.

“These are the most important ones,” she tells CNN, pointing out her antiretroviral medication. Weeks after starting the pills, she felt well again.

Several years ago, Dayimani’s mother died of suspected AIDS. Now, she lives with her older brother. Doctors told her that she acquired HIV from her mother at birth.

The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, attacks the body’s immune system. If left untreated, it can lead to AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Statistics from 2021 show that about 38 million people were living with HIV infection around the world.

Twenty years ago, HIV/AIDS was a death sentence in this region. The cemeteries were full every weekend – adults cut down in their prime; children dying without access to treatment. The virus permeated every aspect of life.

Today, the HIV epidemic has faded from the headlines. It is considered by many to be a manageable condition like diabetes, thanks in no small part to an extraordinarily successful US public health initiative, that few in America may have heard of.

The roots of that success began two decades ago.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/11/africa/a ... index.html