How Did It Ever Happen?

This book offers a unique personal perspective on the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. It is a first person narrative of a European homosexual who tested positive in the early eighties. The author owes his survival to tell the tale not least to the drugs, which in his home country are accessible to any person who is HIV positive. Frank Ham visited Malawi in 1999 and repeatedly thereafter to try and understand precisely why AIDS has been so much more prevalent in Africa than in the West. He pins much of his analysis on the scarcity and affordability of the drugs, without which the lives of millions are being destroyed or threatened. He also considers environmental factors, the role of the Christian churches, and how AIDS is affecting the continent's youth. The narrative challenges and breaks the silence on many dimensions of the disease which are still widely taboo. Indeed finding a publisher in Africa for a frankly written account of AIDS, from the point of view of a homosexual was no mean feat.