HIV/AIDS Epidemic Threatening Food Supply in Famine-Prone Southern Africa
The combination of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, extreme poverty and weak agricultural systems has led to a "chronic, ongoing emergency" in Southern Africa, and the U.N. World Food Programme is seeking $150 million for the nearly nine million people who could run out of food in the coming months, NPR's "All Things Considered" reports. The countries most affected by drought are Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, and parts of Mozambique and Zambia. An early dry season destroyed crops before villagers could harvest them, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic has killed people in the working age population or has made them too sick to tend the fields, according to NPR. As a result, millions of people will not have enough food to survive until the next harvest in April, according to WFP officials (Beaubien, "All Things Considered," NPR, 9/28).
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