Additionally, AIDS orphans must face the stigma and discrimination that so often shadows the disease. This leaves them socially isolated, and often deprived of basic social services such as education. Half of all people with HIV become infected before they turn 25, and they typically die of AIDS while their children are still too young to fend for themselves. In response to the crisis, some African communities have developed innovative care and support programs. The report shows that while communities are clearly still in the forefront of the response, the sheer numbers of orphans threaten to overwhelm their efforts.
Responses are still in their infancy and scarcely commensurate with the magnitude of the problem.
The report provides case studies of how the orphan crisis is being dealt with in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Bellamy pointed out that, while still in their infancy, the efforts spotlighted provide reason for hope. When you see how these people are fighting back, how they are bearing up under the strain of all this loss and devastation, you realize that the rest of the world cannot simply give up hope. Eastern and southern Africa, the focus of the AIDS orphan report, is home to 4.8 percent of the world's population yet has over 50 percent of the world's HIV-positive people and accounts for 60 percent of all lives claimed by AIDS since the epidemic began. This means making AIDS central to development assistance and giving AIDS orphans priority when it comes to debt relief.