Reading the latest numbers from UNAIDS, an umbrella group for five U.N. agencies, the World Bank and the World Health Organization, 34.3 million people in the world have AIDS -- 24.5 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly 19 million have died from AIDS, 3.8 million of them children under the age of 15. I don’t know about you but those numbers give me chills.

Scared that the worst is yet to come and having realized delay can spell disaster when dealing with AIDS, some countries have taken this matter seriously. They have put aside the culture of denial and ignorance. Yes many countries have accepted aids existence but that’s just the start. Sex education needs to start at a younger age, spell it out to pupils in schools and in churches, condoms need to be discussed in context and without fear and distributed to everyone who is active, drug use or misuse must also be discussed with integrity. The reality still remains a lot to be done and there is less time to do it.

Amid their hard work, understaffed employees, poor infrastructure and lack of capital are some of the issues that have hit many countries. What is more stressing to them is that some donors have attached too many strings to their gifts making it difficult for them to accept their offer. A cut in aid could mean economic collapse, mass death and what’s next but civil unrest. To prevent this from going down, donors need to make long-term commitments, and offer more debt relief.

If nothing is done soon, some African countries might be heading for an economic collapse. With a generation of bread-winners having landed their fate leaving children who don’t know the basics of how to get on with life, what else can be predicted but a disaster is about to unfold, leading to a new wave of famine. The reality remains hungry people lack the strength to fight off sickness, sick people lack the strength to grow food, and dead parents cannot teach their children how to farm.

So how can we prevent the disease? How can we cure it? One thing we all should realize is that this is not a disaster in Africa alone, it’s wiping people all over the world. Thailand, China, India, Russia, Indonesia are all facing the same problems.

There is nothing we are not doing to stop the spread of this disease. The question is how fast are we doing it or how far are we willing to go to make sure this virus is taken care once and for all? We need to double our campaign for effective education and prevention and the capital set aside for aids education. Now, more than ever, help from every corner of the world is needed, its time to put political interests aside and try to attack the virus that’s ready to bring the world to a halt.