HIV/AIDS is a disease sweeping the world (ie a pandemic). It is, however, easily preventable by avoiding contact with infected body fluids.

In the 20 years since the disease was recognised, it has killed 20 million people and infected another 40 million, most of whom will die during this decade. Approximately 3 million die of AIDS causes each year, and 5 million are newly infected. At least 14 million children have lost a mother to AIDS.

Two-thirds of those infected live in sub-Saharan Africa, and another quarter in south east Asia and other developing countries. The path of transmission is generally heterosexual intercourse and spread from infected mothers to their babies.

It is feared that by 2006, 3.2 million people in Ethiopia will have HIV/AIDS. Life expectancy has dropped to 47 years, and, by 2009, 1.8 million children will be orphaned. Children’s rate of infection and death is increasing rapidly.

HIV/AIDS spreads in Ethiopia because of:

• frequent famines, lowering immunity
• border conflicts, sapping resources
• low literacy rates, making education and prevention difficult
• poverty
• cultural practices, such as reluctance to discuss sex even within marriage, relatively late marrying age (encouraging pre-marital sex), cultural acceptance of commercial sex workers, and failure to use sterile instruments in traditional practices such as circumcision, female genital mutilation, and tribal scarring.

Most infections are the result of heterosexual unions, primarily married couples, one of whom has multiple partners.

SIM, the mission organization partnering with us on our trip to Ethiopia, has a large, multi-national initiative to help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, called HOPE for AIDS. Please refer to this website for more information on the projects and countries where we are working to make a difference for eternity. You can also take some time visit the