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.
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[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
