In a Harare suburb, at the Mashamzou Centre, a small group of orphans play together. They are among the legion of nine million children who have lost one parent or both to the African AIDS epidemic. Here, these children get clothes and food. Enough to survive.

For other youngsters, this centre is a place to die. Malida and Leona have full-blown AIDS. They were born with the virus that will eventually kill them before they reach their teen years.

Leona is frail. She's 12, but she looks no older than six or seven. She seemed sad and tired, yet she smiled when I asked her if she liked school. "Yes," she said, "particularly mathematics and science." But the odds are that she will never finish high school.

Malida and Leona

Sixteen-year-old Priscilla wishes she could go back to school. But she is too weak. Three months ago, on death's doorstep, she was brought to the Centre by her aunt. The Catholic sisters took her in and nursed her back to life. But her fate is sealed too. She is in the advanced stages of AIDS. When she was nine-years-old, her uncle repeatedly raped her. He was infected. Priscilla whispers "My uncle raped me and then the sickness started." Once she became sick, her mother rejected her. "My mother is a teacher, she does not want to see me. I don't know why. She stays with my two sisters. She said, 'you are HIV positive. You give others your sickness.'" Her aunt and her niece are now her only family.

The harsh reality of these ruined lives is painful to witness. Fathers and mothers burying their children. Grandmothers and grandfathers raising their children's children. "This disease will destroy everybody. Clear up everybody", says 68-year-old Mathius Kaseke. He buried his son-in-law a few months ago. Last week he attended his granddaughter's funeral. He will eventually do the same for his own daughter. All of them are victims of AIDS. "Who is going to make the next generation?" asks Mathius. "Nobody," he says, "unless scientists find a cure."

Priscilla

According to the most recent UNAIDS report, half of all 15-year-old boys in Zimbabwe can expect to die before the age of 50. A third of the work force will be lost by the year 2005. Life expectancy for women is now only 39 years. No family escapes the scourge of this disease.

So great is the depth of this epidemic that it borders on the unimaginable. Yet when you are there it is almost as if this disease does not exist. The stigma attached to AIDS promotes an air of desperate denial. Admitting to having AIDS is a sure way of being ostracized. In the words of one AIDS sufferer: "You become a monster." Those who have the illness call it something else: fatigue, tuberculosis, malaria, anything but AIDS. But the cemeteries, overfilled with newly dug graves, tell the truth. The tomb markers read born in 1964, 1970, 1955 ... died in 1999, in 2000. In this country they bury a thousand victims of AIDS a week.

Medical facilities do not even come close to handling even the most basic needs of the sick and dying. Many people turn to traditional healers, who say they can help. Some suggest to infected men that having sex with a young virgin will purify them, rid them of the disease. "A lot of men have gone ahead and believed that, they are so desperate to be cured. They don't think of the impact on the little ones," says Priscilla Mataure program director for the NGO SAFAID.

One of many fresh graves, this one for 10-year-old Nyasha Kaseke

Education programs to counter these myths and misconceptions are critically underfunded. In fact, no government in Africa has enough money to deal with the AIDS epidemic. Many countries lack the political will to deal with the crisis even though prevention remains the best weapon these countries have. Tim Lee, of SAFAID, explained to me that "even if Africa could afford the new retrovirus drugs, these have to be taken with clean water on a full stomach. That is not possible in most of sub-Saharan Africa."

Uganda has undertaken just such a campaign and the results have been encouraging. The incidence of the disease has levelled off. Other countries, including Zimbabwe have taken notice, but have yet to act so decisively.

I remember doing stories about AIDS in North America 20 years ago. Like many other Canadians, I believed that AIDS, including in Africa, was understood and relatively under control. I was wrong. My trip to Zimbabwe made that all too clear.

Statistics from a World Bank Report: The Impact of AIDS on Capacity Building written in 1997/98:

• In Africa, AIDS has yet to peak in the number of people it will affect.
  
  
• AIDS has become the number one cause of mortality among adults 15-49 years of age. Mortality rates, usually caused by other important diseases such as malaria, have doubled and tripled because of AIDS. Tuberculosis has also increased tremendously.
  
  
• HIV is a disease of both the affluent and poor. High social groups have not been spared its ravages.
  
  
• HIV rates exceed 30 per cent of prime-aged adults in urban and semi-urban areas. Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe will lose 25 to 50 per cent of their 1996 urban work force by 2005.
  
  
• Life expectancy of a person living in Zimbabwe is 21 years lower in 2000-2004 than it would have been without AIDS.
  
  
• Children who lose one parent are far less likely to go to school.
  
  
• More than nine million children under the age of 10 in Africa have lost a parent to AIDS. In Zimbabwe, officials estimate that there are 600,000 orphans. Unofficial estimates say it could be as high as one million.
  
  
• AIDS related deaths also reduce the skilled labour force. Urban based sectors will lose on average 30 per cent of their employees due to AIDS by the year 2005.
  
  
• In Africa's fight against AIDS, human and financial resources are too few or not well utilized. Skills are weak and effective leadership and role models from political levels are absent.
  
  
• Most of the AIDS control programs in Africa are funded by external-donor-sources rather than by national and local governments. Not one country in Africa is meeting the financial needs created by this epidemic.
  
  
• Too few sexually active people have changed their behaviour.

From a report released late June by UNAIDS:

• Number of people living with HIV/AIDS is 34.3 million including 1.3 million children under the age of 15 years.
  
  
• In most sub-Saharan African countries adults and children are acquiring HIV at a higher rate than ever before: the number of new infections in the regions during 1999 was four million. Botswana has an infection rate of 35.8 per cent, Zimbabwe 25.8 per cent, South Africa 19.9 per cent
  
  
• In Zimbabwe, by 1997, 15-year-old boys could expect to die before the age of 50.
  
  
• Health systems in most of Africa are unable to cope with the demand. Most AIDS sufferers are taken care of at home.
  
  
• Many companies in Africa report that illness and death is now the main reason for people leaving the company.
  
  
• There is still much ignorance and disbelief associated with the spread of this disease.
  
  
• In sub-Saharan Africa there is still an enormous stigma attached to this disease and those who are sick are often ostracized. "Fear, stigma and denial: a vicious circle. ... This wall of silence hinders prevention and care."

Canadian aid to Africa

• As of late June, 2002, Canada had committed $6 billion in aid over five years. The money is aimed at improving trade, governance and quality of life.
• Included in this is the $500 million Canada Fund for Africa, announced in late June, 2002.
• As of Jan. 1, 2003, Canada began offering duty- and quota-free export access to Canada for 48 least developed countries.
• Africa will receive at least half of the yearly increase in Canada's budget for international assistance until 2010.
• As host of the G8 summit in 2002, Prime Minister Jean Chretien helped spearhead the multi-billion dollar Africa Action Plan aid package.
• Half of all Africans live on less than $1 (U.S.) per day
• Average life expectancy of Africans at birth is 54

Sources: Canadian International Development Agency and The New Partnership for Africa's Development