PUTTING A FACE TO IT

When dealing with intractable and often tragic problems, it can be difficult to focus. AIDS is an epidemic that kills 2m people annually. In sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease is most rampant, 1.9m people are infected each year. Between 31m and 36m people around the world live with HIV. These numbers are enormous and abstract, depressing and disempowering. Why think about it at all?

World AIDS Day on December 1st is a forced spotlight–a deadline for all of those official reports and announcements and lectures of what we've done and what we still must do. The day (and the weeks leading up to it) brought some good news: according to a new report from the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS, the number of new infections each year has gone down by 17% since 2001 (the year the UN began devoting itself in earnest to fighting HIV/AIDS). Antiretroviral drugs have also helped to lower the death rate and curb the spread of the virus. Good news, yes, but also a bit like spitting into a well.

It helps to balance all of these charts and figures with faces and stories. For this, we have a powerful new slideshow from Alexandra Suich, a contributor to The Economist, who spent some time in 2005 and 2007 working with organisations in Kenya that care for people who are HIV-positive. There she met and photographed a number of people, mostly women, who are fighting the disease or caring for people stricken with it. These photographs give a good sense of what the struggle is all about.

~ EMILY BOBROW