The AIDS Epidemic (2000)

Excerpt from the draft of “Apostle to the Pygmies – The Doctor Jerry Galloway Story”

The international conference on AIDS held in South Africa released some reports. The reports for Africa were bleak, with the average life span expected to drop to 30 in some countries by the year 2015. The conference projected there would be 10 million orphans in Africa because of AIDS. We gave many conferences on AIDS to the people, but I do not know what effect they have made. When we have HIV test kits, we test the blood donors.

I, along with my three priest confreres, agreed we could not hide our heads in the sand when it came to the issue of AIDS. We decided to give sessions on AIDS prevention in high schools and villages. We would be more aggressive in treating sexually transmitted diseases that predisposed people to HIV infections. As an additional step, we would make prophylactics available to the people. However, we need more HIV test kits to screen blood donors and do random testing to determine the incident rate among the people.

The soldiers that frequented the Botoa villages tried to entice or even force the young girls to have sex. Last week, I filed another complaint against a soldier who terrorized the girls in one village. The girls fled and hid in the forest for the night. In Kinshasa, if a soldier was found guilty of robbery or rape, he was executed by firing squad within 24 hours. A firing squad was a severe form of punishment, but according to the people of Kinshasa, it was effective.