William Brangham:
Tonight’s focus is on HIV and AIDS. And Kenya has been doing a pretty good job thus far tamping down that virus. And USAID has played a very big part in that.
When that support goes away — I mean, there have been a lot of projections, we have reported on them, about the number of deaths that might occur. And, frankly, it’s still too early to really know. I mean, all of our reporting shows that, yes, people are dying and will continue to do so.
But we wanted to give a very sort of close-up, personal look at what HIV care and prevention really looks like. It’s a lot more than just giving people medication. And we wanted to give people, basically, viewers a sense of what that taxpayer money is going to do and, more importantly, what happens when that support vanishes.
Victor Thomas is alive today thanks in large part to USAID. The 13-year-old has been HIV-positive since he was born. He and his brother Kevin both got the virus from their mother. Without regular antiretroviral treatment, most kids won’t make it past 5.
Victor lives in this small tin-roofed home. There’s no electricity or plumbing. It sits on the edge of Mombasa, a city on the coast of Kenya. He lives with his mom, Sarah, and his other siblings. Sarah has struggled with her own HIV status. Even though the virus is prevalent here, the stigma surrounding it feeds denial and often keeps people away from treatment.
