The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that attacks the immune system and ultimately leads to its failure by allowing the contraction of opportunistic infections and tumors. Today there are 34 million HIV-positive people in the world. Of these, over 75% live in Africa. The area most infected by the HIV virus is the sub-Saharan region and for this reason the average life expectancy in that area is less than 50 years. Before the influence of HIV that number reached almost 70. (dosomething.org) I could ramble on about statistics all day, but you can see that HIV is a serious problem in Africa. No one is sure how the virus started, but scientists have been able to narrow its origin to a specific type of chimpanzee in West Africa. They believe that the chimpanzee version of the immunodeficiency virus (SIV) was somehow transmitted to humans and then mutated into HIV. It is not known how the virus was introduced into humans, but the most popular theory is that hunters were exposed to infected chimpanzee blood and then contracted the HIV virus. (www.theaidsinstitute.org) AIDS, which stands for “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome,” is a way of describing a whole group of symptoms and diseases associated with the damage HIV does to the immune system. Here in America, being HIV positive is not necessarily a death sentence because we have drugs that can slow the virus and prevent it from becoming AIDS. In Africa, however, the necessary drugs are very expensive and many infected people may not even know they have the virus! Lack of education and a culture of childbearing have made trying to rid Africa of AIDS a daunting task, and we're not sure where to start. (std.about.com) How... middle of paper... ....since the 2000s it has actually improved significantly, an official survey will be conducted in 2015 but the percentage of HIV positive people is expected to decrease due to rapid population growth. I think they've done all the right things to fight this epidemic. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. More people now understand the dangers of unprotected sex, but still choose to continue the practice due to cultural beliefs. The strides made to protect children are where the greatest improvements have occurred, and other sub-Saharan countries are actually starting to look to Swaziland as a guide to addressing their own problems. HIV and AIDS is a serious problem, but it is a problem that is slowly being addressed and hopefully one day soon it will not be so prevalent in that part of the world.