AIDS

Acrylic painting on canvas 407mm X 305mm Unframed

Painting Description
Painting Reviews (12)

In the early years of AIDS, the virus didn’t get attention because the victims were marginalised people : gays, Haitians and hemophiliacs.
Then when AIDS did threaten mainstream America, it finally evoked empathy and research dollars. But now it has slipped back in consciousness because once more the primary victims are marginalised people – this time Africans.
Nearly 3 million people die from AIDS each year. Among them are half a million children under the age of 15, mostly Africans infected during childbirth….
The only meal the orphans regularly get is lunch at school, provided by the World Food Programme…
Swaziland has the highest infection rate in the world, with nearly 40 per cent of adults infected. The life expectancy has fallen from 55 to 34. This is a land where parents routinely bury their children, and where mothers constantly learn they have given their babies a death sentence – the AIDS virus – during childbirth or breastfeeding….A 4$ dose of a medicine called nevirapine mostly blocks mother-to-child transmission of HIV during childbirth, and yet because of poverty and governmental incompetence, only 10 per cent of pregnant african women with the virus get such drug.
Twenty-five years after we allowed AIDS to spin out of control …today, as every day, another 7900 will die of AIDS.
-Nicholas Kristoff, International Herald Tribune, May 31, 2006

This image has been used by International Development Education Association of Scotland [IDEAS] for their brochure

Besides the Reviews appreciation also comes from:

Maya, Mexico; Sally, USA; Tanya, Ireland; Hannah, Italy; Alysia Lindsay, USA; Martiya, S Africa; Dolly Wilson, USA; Shahaf, Israel; Marco, Indonesia; Elsa, Brazil; Kathy, Germany; Michel, France; Anna, Russia; Christin, Germany; Jeanine, The Netherlands; Shirin, Iran; Valerio, Italy; Shorina, Russia; Justyna, Poland; Rossana, Italy; Khatool, Uzbekistan; Elke A, Germany, Marco, Italy; Payal, India; Sabo, Germany; Siddhi, India