Guardian-- Aids epidemic 'bringing social collapse'

The Aids epidemic is causing the spiralling disintegration of some of the poorest countries in Africa, precipitating famine and social, political and economic collapse, says the latest official United Nations update.
The UNAids report takes a more sombre tone than ever before as it lays out the increasing scale of the global epidemic which last year killed 3.1 million people, of whom 610,000 were children.

A further 5 million people were infected with the deadly virus in 2002, bringing the world total living with HIV to 42 million. Most of the 29.4 million with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to die - only about 300,000 currently receive life-saving drugs.

The report shows the epidemic taking off quickly in eastern Europe and the central Asian republics. In 2002, there were an estimated 250,000 new infections there, bringing the region's total to 2.5 million. But in some countries the spread has been phenomenal, with almost as many new infections in Uzbekistan in the first six months of this year as in the entire previous decade.

There are other things we should be more concerned about than letting Bush get his familial revenge.