Pandemic: Facing AIDS

In the last twenty years over 22 million people have died as a result of the AIDS epidemic, and of these 5 million alone were in 2001. Currently, this insidious disease takes over five thousand victims a day. Behind these horrible numbers are stories of individual people in various corners of the world who are trying to fight the disease. A film by director Rory Kennedy from HBO productions introduces us to five such individuals. In the introduction he takes us to Uganda, where one of the local doctors uses non-traditional methods to help orphans whose parents have died of AIDS. In Brazil we are introduced to a young homosexual, who tries to return to a normal life with the help of special HAART therapy. In a Buddhist temple in Thailand the director examines the fate of former prostitutes whose final wish is to return to their home villages and die with dignity. A former truck driver in India, unlike many in his village, is able to reconcile the prejudices against those infected with AIDS and give his pregnant wife the drugs to relieve her pain. In the final story we meet with a young pair of former drug addicts in Moscow, whose fate is proof that the AIDS epidemic in recent years has expanded dangerously in Eastern Europe.