Taking a lead
AFRICANS have many names for AIDS. “Slim” and “the thinning disease” are blunt and descriptive. Some Batswana dub it the “radio disease” after years of public-health broadcasts there. Others who use life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) talk of them as “airtime”, as if buying credit for a mobile phone. Some say “Henry the Fourth” or “Hello, I'm Victor” for HIV. Official discussion is rarely so forthright.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Taking a lead”
From the July 23rd 2005 edition
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