Helena
13-07-2004, 16:08
By Geoffrey Cowley
NewsweekJuly 19 issue - The first part of Nozuko Mavuka's story is nothing unusual in sub-Saharan Africa. A young woman comes down with aches and diarrhea, and her strong limbs wither into twigs. As she grows too weak to gather firewood for her family, she makes her way to a provincial hospital, where she is promptly diagnosed with tuberculosis and AIDS. Six weeks of treatment will cure the TB, a medical officer explains, but there is little to be done for her HIV infection. It is destroying her immune system and will soon take her life. Mavuka becomes a pariah as word of her condition gets around the community. Reviled by her parents and ridiculed by her neighbors, she flees with her children to a shack in the weeds beyond the village, where she settles down to die.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/mag/040719_Issue/nwk_gal_ah_aids_040710.hlarge.jpg
NewsweekJuly 19 issue - The first part of Nozuko Mavuka's story is nothing unusual in sub-Saharan Africa. A young woman comes down with aches and diarrhea, and her strong limbs wither into twigs. As she grows too weak to gather firewood for her family, she makes her way to a provincial hospital, where she is promptly diagnosed with tuberculosis and AIDS. Six weeks of treatment will cure the TB, a medical officer explains, but there is little to be done for her HIV infection. It is destroying her immune system and will soon take her life. Mavuka becomes a pariah as word of her condition gets around the community. Reviled by her parents and ridiculed by her neighbors, she flees with her children to a shack in the weeds beyond the village, where she settles down to die.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/mag/040719_Issue/nwk_gal_ah_aids_040710.hlarge.jpg