Aids in Africa: Darwin's Gambit or an African Challenge?

AIDS changes everything. And it's real! Young Africans are dying quietly in their numbers. Orphans multiply, families disintegrate, funerals on Saturdays have become routine. But life goes on in Africa as if nothing happened. It is the most insidious threat to the life of a continent. If one is to believe the mind numbing statistics, life expectancy in most African countries has declined dramatically from 60 - 70 years to 40- 45 years, and still declining. In Southern Africa a quarter of the adult population are reportedly down with the syndrome. In Botswana it's as high as 39 per cent. In 13 sub-Saharan African countries, more than 10 per cent of the entire population carry the virus. According to the Western prophets of doom, as they have always prophesied, Africa is a dying continent.