Concurrent with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, intravenous drug usage has exploded, and with it, the spread of AIDS in those region.... The World Health Organization (WHO) reported November 24 that there are approximately 250,000 new cases of AIDS in the area this year, which brings the total in the region to 700,000.

WHO estimates that 3 million people worldwide will die from AIDS during the year 2000. The agency estimates that this will bring the total number of adults and children who have died because of the disease to 21.8 million.

United Church of God publications have reported the tragedy of millions of AIDS orphans in Africa. In a bizarre related development, Mole Songololo, a child welfare organization in Cape Town, South Africa, reports that thousands of orphans, ranging from age 4 to 17, are being kidnapped and sold into slavery for prostitution. Primary targets are orphans who roam the rural regions in sub-Saharan countries, for these children are easily abducted and trucked to South Africa for sale.

Among those trafficking in children, according to Bernadette van Vuuren, an official of Mole Songololo, "were brothel owners, government officials, crime syndicates, former military and police personnel and border officials inside South Africa" ("AIDS Orphans Sold into Sex Trade" by Adriana Stuijt, NewsMax.com, September 7, 2000). If anything could add to the revulsion of this gross evil, it is the fact that family members are sometimes involved in selling the children.

Ignorance fuels the multifaceted disaster. Van Vuuren explains that, "Adults scared of contracting the HIV/AIDS virus view children as safe sex option.... And many in Africa with AIDS believe that sex with children could cure them" (ibid.).

AIDS has also been a factor in the return of tuberculosis (TB). "Tuberculosis Roars Back" reported Catherine Arnst for the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. in early October. Because tuberculosis bacteria become active after the patient's immune system weakens for some other reason, TB is the leading cause of death for AIDS victim....

Scientists did not refer to the surge in incidences of TB as an epidemic, but rather described it as endemic, that is, permanently lodged in the world's population.... WHO reports that TB has now affected two billion people worldwide. Statistically, about 10 percent of carriers develop the disease and therefore become infectious. Everyone who does become infectious will spread the disease to between 10 and 15 others, which translates into another 2 to 3 billion people - and so, the potential horror escalate....

TB is now the fifth-largest cause of death in the world and the number one killer of women. Industrialized nations are not spared. About 15 million U.S. citizens have already been infected. Treatment costs will severely impact health-care program.... According to the Institute of Medicine, TB treatment costs more than $16,000 per patient in the United State....

M.... Arnst reports, "Any commercial drug is still at least seven years away from approval." She's speaking of a drug under development that would block the bacteria which causes TB from becoming active. The bacteria can remain dormant in an infected person for 60 years! Even further away is a vaccination that would prevent infections altogether.