“Is HIV actually still a problem?” This is the question I get asked more than anything else. I don’t fault the asker because it isn’t a problem we hear much about. But, as my friend Kevin Scott says, “The way we view things changes how we do things.” At CARE for AIDS, we can’t expect someone to respond generously or urgently to our work unless they have a right understanding of the state of this epidemic.
Each of my trips to Kenya seems to have a central idea that presents itself over and over again. In my recent trip, I was reminded constantly this disease has not lost its teeth as many might seem to believe. HIV still has the ability to strip a person of everything and reduce them to nothing. There are few things like it in the world. To lose your health, livelihood, marriage, and all social connections because of a disease is unfathomable, but it still happens everyday.