For many years, a culture of silence had surrounded the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Both the governments and the people had ignored the epidemic and denied to acknowledge its existence and a continent has been let down by its culture. Consequently the virus exploded killing millions in its wake, and now this virus is threatening to drive a large part of Africa’s next generation off the face of the earth.

Africa is increasingly home to hundreds of children robbed of their childhood by the AIDS epidemic and children who are now staggering under adult-size hardships. So far, governments have done little on dealing with these children. From a recent United Nations Children's Education Fund (UNICEF) report, of the 40 sub-Saharan countries hit by the AIDS epidemic, only six have plans in place to deal with orphans whose parents have died of aids and children affected by the virus. With most countries not concerned or even not able to afford taking care of them, they are left with no choice but to invade the streets in search for the fundamental human needs and other have opted to resort to the industries to seek for employment.

With no one to guide them, they are ready to entrust anyone with their lives, making them prone to mistreatment, including under aged laborers in industries, sex slaves and others become police shooting range in the city streets.

With no schooling, these children are on a one-way lane, the path to survival in this unforgiving world. With the state they are in and fate ready to spit them out, they are just hanging on, desperately watching their childhood and life pass them by.

The statistics throughout Africa tell a story of devastation. The need for effective AIDS prevention programs cannot be ignored. To give you a clear picture of the situation, the UNICEF estimates in a new report that 11 million children under 15 in sub-Saharan Africa have lost at least one parent to AIDS. About a third of them have lost both parents. By 2010, UNICEF predicts, AIDS will have claimed at least one of the parents of 15 percent of the region's children — 20 million in all.

Are we willing to sit back and watch as this virus wipe out our next generation? And for those who are not infected, are we willing to see them slowly slide to their own demise? Its time we stand up as a united world, forget our difference in race, color and creed. Lets fight this virus as one and we will have won the biggest health war of the twenty first century.