Recent South African AIDS news; South African doctors in Alberta

Here's some recent CNN articles that caught my attention:

1. This one talks about the success of new strategies to battle AIDS, such as microfinance. A sad statement ends the article though:

While WHO's ambitious "3 by 5" strategy, an attempt to put 3 million people on antiretrovirals by 2005, failed to reach its target, the urgency inspired by the campaign did galvanize the global community. Much of that drive has dissipated since the campaign ended. A recent report from the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition says efforts are stagnating, meaning the world will miss the UNAIDS 2010 target of treating 9.8 million people by more than half.

1. The second article has some startling statistics:

• Fewer than half of South Africa's 15-year-olds will live to see their 60th birthday because of HIV/AIDS, according to a new report.
• In South Africa, an estimated 950 people died per day during 2006 from AIDS related diseases, and a further 1,400 were infected each day.
• Life expectancy in SA dropped from 63 in 1990 to 51 in 2006. In KwaZulu-Natal, where we lived and worked, it is as low as 43.

Horrifyingly, many of us in Alberta, including me, have South African family doctors. Our provincial government has actively recruited medical professionals from South Africa to come here to address our “shortage”, while many poor in South Africa may never see a doctor in their lifetime.