- Don't let it happen!

Blessed Gérard's
HIV/AIDS-Education
Programme

Mandeni, kwaZulu/Natal, Republic of South Africa

This year 2,000,000 people have died from AIDS in Africa.
According to an United Nations- and World Health Organisation report South Africa is the country with the fastest growing AIDS epidemic in the world with 1,500 people newly infected with HIV every day.
kwaZulu/Natal has one of the highest HIV rates in the world with 33 % of the 15 to 49 year olds being HIV positive.
20 % of the miners are HIV positive.

(Source: BBC World Report)

Six million South Africans will be infected with HIV by the year 2005.
Most of them will come from kwaZulu/Natal
In the same year the number of people in the country living with full blown AIDS will have reached a staggering 1,5 million.
The HIV infection rate in kwaZulu/Natal is at 26,6 % (according to the National Department of Health)
The national infection average is 16 % (according to the latest national HIV ante natal survey)
Last year's figure was 14 %
Already 150000 people have died from AIDS in kwaZulu/Natal in the past seven years.
It will only take another two years for that figure to double.
Research has shown that by the year 2014, when AIDS mortality is at its peak, 130000 people will be dying each year.
Last year alone AIDS killed more people in the province than all other causes together.
By 2006 the cumulative total of AIDS deaths in kwaZulu/Natal will have surpassed one million.
And by 2016 the number will reach two million in absence of a cure.
South Africa has grown from having one of the lowest infection rates a few years ago to currently having the fastest growing epidemic on the continent (according to Dr. Garth Japhet)
It is estimated that between 40 and 50 million people globally will have the HIV virus by the year 2000.

(Source: Daily News, 4 June 1998)

6 Babies die of AIDS each day in kwaZulu/Natal.
4000 people are infected per day in Southern Africa.
There will be 500 000 AIDS orphans in kwaZulu/Natal by the year 2000.
20% of women attending antenatal clinics in kwaZulu/Natal in 1995 were infected with HIV.

(Source: Sunday Tribune, 23 February 1997)

We inform the public about the true facts of AIDS. We have trained volunteer workers, who visit the communities to make them aware of the dangers and effective measures of prevention.
The Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard runs "Blessed Gérard's Care-Centre and Hospice" which caters for AIDS-victims.