The AIDS Epidemic: Looking at the One “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” Mother Teresa’s famous quote is reflected in the actions of many people who are responding to Africa’s AIDS epidemic, one person at a time. One of those who acted was 33-year-old internist Dr. Patrick Ingiliz, who spent a year in the African nation of Malawi as part of a doctor exchange program. As a relative holds the young mother’s baby, Dr. Ingiliz checks the woman’s AIDS-related symptoms. One of the poorest economies in the world, Malawi has been hard hit by AIDS. Of its 15 million citizens, close to 1 million were positive for HIV in 2011. In 2011, an estimated 44,000 people in Malawi died because of AIDS, a decline from the estimate of 63,000 in 2001, but still quite high. One urgent priority for Malawi’s government is caring for the more than 610,000 orphans whose parents have died of AIDS (UNAIDS/WHO, 2012, 2013).

Daniel Rosenthal/laif/Redux