In Southern Africa, Success Against H.I.V. Offers Hope for Beating Back Another Virus
The New York Times
A former Africa correspondent, who covered the height of the AIDS epidemic there 15 years ago, finds lessons in the remarkable progress against that virus for our current fight.
CHONGWE, Zambia — On a visit to a public hospital in a farming community in late November, I saw something that astonished me.
Empty beds. Rows of them, their black plastic-covered mattresses stripped of sheets. Blue privacy curtains folded up over rails, out of the way.
I had never seen a Zambian hospital like this. When I last toured one, nearly 15 years ago, patients lay two or three to a bed, head-to-feet-to-head. And more on the floor. More on thatch mats in the hallways. The patients were gaunt, their eyes huge above sunken cheeks. Hopelessness and suffering hung in the air.
