An article in the Guardian about the impact of AIDS on Malawi. The personal accounts are heart wrenching, and it’s a good overview of what AIDS can do to a society. Central Asia could be this bad someday, if governments in the region don’t take the steps they need. Although maybe not. I suspect that if(when) the HIV/AIDS explosion comes to the former Soviet Union, the international community will have realized that ARV treatment is necessary to keep societies from collapsing and serve as an incentive to get tested. (Right now, it’s very hard to encourage people to get tested – what do you say, “get tested, so you’ll know you have a terminal illness with no available treatment”? Social responsibility is the only motivator.) Also, there are enough health care providers and health care infrastructure to ensure that the drugs can be distributed. Though I guess tuberculosis is a similar model of an illness that requires a supervised treatment regimen, and the treatment and cure rates are abysmal.

Wow. Better handwashing could save a million lives a year. You don’t mess around with diarrheal diseases.