AIDS explosion

Bucharest, Romania

Romania has one of the fastest-growing rates of HIV in the world, the U.N.’s AIDS agency said this week. Most infections there come through heterosexual sex, with mother-to-child transmission a close second. A looming problem is the generation known as the children of ’89, the year of Romania’s first reported AIDS case. At that time, the country had a large population of abandoned, underweight children, and orphanages routinely gave them injections of medicine and vitamins without changing needles. Those kids that survived are now teenagers, and they are becoming sexually active. “This is like a time bomb waiting to go off,” said Chris Pitt, Romania director for the charity World Vision.

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