Zambian woman conveys the impact of Aids
Friday, 1 December 2006
Edna Kalaluka is Concern's HIV&AIDS programme manager in Zambia where one in four adults is HIV positive.
On the attached audio interview Edna bears witness to the devastation of the AIDS epidemic in Zambia where over 2 million people are HIV positive. Over 100,000 people die from the infection in Zambia every year.
Edna Kalaluka gives a compelling account of watching the Aids disaster in Zambia unfold in front of her eyes over the last twenty years, "It has come to the point where Aids has become embedded in our society. There is no one who remains unaffected."
She outlines how the elderly have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, "Elderly people in Zambia are having to re-assume the role of parents, breadwinners and farmers in their old age. You rarely come see an old person who is not looking after an orphan. In Africa when you reach a certain age your children become your pension. This not happening any more. Unfortunately the reverse is now true. Old people are being incredibly stretched by having to take on the children of parents who have died of Aids."
Edna also describes the impact of hunger and poverty on the AIDS problem in Zambia where two out of every three people live on less than one dollar a day.
