Since physicians first described its symptoms almost 20 years ago, HIV has infected 53 million people, of which 19 million have died. Of the 34.3 million people now living with HIV/AIDS, 24.5 million are in sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic has left 11 million children orphaned.

Because the disease is claiming teachers in increasing numbers throughout the continent, the epidemic is having a devastating effect on students' education, their future job possibilities and their quality of life. Limited access to education reduces possibilities for young adults to find work and be able to support themselves.

According to statistics, almost one-third of teachers in South Africa are HIV positive, a higher infection rate than in the general population. In Ivory Coast, a 1998 government study reported that six teachers died of AIDS each week, and the number has probably gone up since then. That country, which had long been one of the richest in the region, now has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in French-speaking Africa. The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS estimates that almost 11 percent of the adult population is HIV infected, and that 72,000 people died of AIDS in 1999. Private spending on education in the cities fell almost by half in households with someone with AIDS.