(英会話リスニングスクリプト)
Just a few years ago, Mala was a typical
middle-class Indian housewife.
She cooked, cleaned and looked after her
two small children.
Last year her life took a tragic turn: her
husband died of AIDS, she was diagnosed HIV positive and
her mother-in-law took her children away from her, saying
they too will get the disease.
"When friends dropped inn for a visit
she would introduce me saying, 'she is my sons widow. She
has AIDS.'" says Mala.
AIDS is now described as "explosive"
around the world.
A study of a hospital in the port city of
Durban in South Africa - where the world's biggest and Africa's
first AIDS conference opened on July 9, 2000 - found that
almost half the beds in the medical wards were occupied
by AIDS by AIDS patients.
South Africa has one of the world's fastest
growing HIV infections, with 1700 people infected daily,
adding to the 4.3 million, or 10 per cent of its population
living with HIV.
Until now, Asia has been more successful
in holding the AIDS virus at bay than Africa, where the
disease has killed about 12 million people.
But with millions like Mala trapped in the
web of misconceptions, myths ad prejudice, AIDS is now threatening
to engulf many of the poverty-stricken countries.
In many Asian countries, the battle against
HIV is a social and cultural one against the social stigma
attached to the disease.
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