For a week this month, the media camps out in Durban at the 13th International AIDS Conference, www.aids2000.org, to shine a brighter light on the worldwide epidemic. These articles, already published and available free online, so far set the standard for coverage without borders:

“The Night I Was Raped”
www.mg.co.za/mg/news/99apr1/9apr-rape1.html
South African journalist Charlene Smith pulls no punches in this breathtaking account of her rape just five days before filing. The story spurred a nationwide movement about lack of anti-HIV meds for rape survivors in a country where the crime occurs every 26 seconds.
 
“Rx For AIDS”
www.saja.org/1997vendantam.html
Shankar Vendantam’s piece originally appeared four years ago in The Philadelphia Inquirer, but many aspects of the epidemic described in the article haven’t changed—the lack of access to drugs in India, for example.

“Greed, Indifference Continue to Kill…”
www.beingalivela.org/guatemala.html
Richard Stern, PhD, is not a journalist—but experience as director of a Costa Rican advocacy group lends his reports from Latin America heartfelt details of HIVers’ day-to-day struggles and survival.