"During the past decade or so, the poorest of Africa's poor have suffered as rarely before. Merely to survive, they have sold off their meager assets -- household goods and farm animals and the tin roofs of their homes. Just now, the most urgent need is in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Zimbabwe. But hunger has become a chronic problem throughout the region, often occurring even under the best of weather conditions. The World Food Program warns that nearly 40 million Africans are struggling against starvation, a ''scale of suffering'' that is ''unprecedented.'' Coincident with the hunger is H.I.V./AIDS, which has beset sub-Saharan Africa in a disproportionate way, cursing it with 29.4 million infections, nearly three-quarters of the world's caseload. Very few of the stricken can afford the drugs that forestall the virus's death work, and family after family is being purged of its breadwinning generations, leaving the very young and the very old to cope."
I must read the full story this weekend. My question: Is this tragedy avoidable? If so, how? Or must sub-Saharan Africa always endure this situation? I hope the author has some recommendations rather than a cleverly written chronicle.
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