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Sub-Saharan Africa holds just 10 percent of the world's population but it houses more than half the global total of people infected with HIV.
According to World Health Organisation estimates, out of the 42 million people affected worldwide, 25 million are in sub-Saharan Africa.
UNAIDS, the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and the World Health Organisation estimate that 800,000 children have become infected with HIV,610.00 have died and many more have been orphaned, losing parents to the epidemic.
Mozambique is one of 14 African countries being targeted by UNAID as Officials believe that with a prevalence rate of 13.6 percent,the population presents the greatest challenge and possibly the greatest opportunity for success in turning around the HIV/AIDS threat through HIV awareness programmes in rural areas.
In Zimbabwe, health experts estimate that AIDS is killing an average of 3,000 people every week and that more than 70 percent of hospital admissions are HIV/AIDS related.
Efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa has led to some health experts in Africa to champion the practise of male circumcision, which Daniel Halperin, an AIDS expert at the Harvard School of Public Health says "This would be the first intervention shown by the highestlevels of science to prevent HIV infection."
A World Health Organisation study also indicated that circumcision could
prevent nearly 6 million new HIV infections and save 3 million lives in sub-Saharan Africa over the next 20 years -- making it one of the most promising interventions against a disease for which there remains no cure and no imminent hope of a vaccine.
The rising interest in circumcision as a tool against AIDS is based primarily on one study conducted in Orange Farm, a poor township outside Johannesburg, South AFrica that found circumcised men were about 60 percent less likely to contract HIV.
The AIDS epidemic in South Africa kills at least 900 people in the county every day.
In the battle to bring AIDS under control, South Africa offers ARV (anti-retrovirals) treatment programmes to more than 200,000 people, although there remains a further 800,000 in need.
People are also being encouraged to undergo voluntary HIV tests started by a Non Governmental Organisation, as doctors and community groups struggle to help an estimated 5 million people infected with the virus.
One NGO, Ikamva Youth which has its roots in the township of Khayelitsha, organises voluntary HIV tests for its community so that those with HIV can have better access to medicine and care.
With a basic goal of creating social change in South Africa by giving disadvantaged youth the chance to receive better education and job-based training, Ikamva Youth decided to include AIDS education in its programme this year as they realised that it was a necessary equation in helping South Africans realise their aspirations.
Like most parts of South Africa, the problem of AIDS ignorance and discrimination is a serious issue that the youth and volunteers in the organisation are tackling as seriously as the challenge of raising the educational standards of the youth.
The NGO has so far managed to send on more than half of its 'learners' to receive tertiary education. So the future could shine a little brighter for South Africa, at least in one corner of the country.
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