Silent Atomic Bomb
Aids in Mozambique - 2002

There is no cure for Aids. There is, however, a treatment that keeps people with Aids alive: antiretroviral treatment.
In Mozambique, this treatment costs $350 per person per year (less than $1 per day). It's too expensive for most of the more than 1 million Mozambicans who are HIV-positive, and too expensive for the government of Mozambique (the national health budget is only $10 per person per year). About 13% of the adult population of Mozambique is HIV-positive. And the situation is getting worse (every day 600 more Mozambicans are infected with HIV). As a result of Aids, average life expectancy in Mozambique , by 2010, will have dropped from 43 to 27. A level not seen since the 19th century. The difference between people dying at 27 instead of 43 is best understood in terms of the children: it's the difference between being orphaned at 5 instead of 18.