Fifty-one-year-old Mateline Msipa is living with HIV. Her 17-year-old daughter, born after Msipa was diagnosed with the virus, may also have it, but she has never been tested.
In rural Zambia and Malawi, new mums face long delays finding out if they have passed HIV on to their babies.
Lungile Thamela knows how he got infected with HIV: through his reckless choice to have unprotected sex with his partner although he knew she was living with HIV.
Across Africa, men have lower rates than women for HIV testing, antiretroviral treatment enrollment and adherence, viral load suppression and survival.
Though West Africa’s massive Ebola outbreak may be dominating the spotlight within the global health community, HIV/AIDS remains an enormous issue for Africa as a whole - a sentiment that Washington officials made clear this week in their discussions of legislative and technological setbacks plaguing progress in fighting the epidemic.
Silence is golden, it is said. But not for Constance Nansamba* from Uganda, who paid a dear price for keeping silent about being HIV positive and pregnant at age 18.
She is only 17, but each morning is a reminder of her losses in life. As Pretty Nyathi* forces herself out of bed, feeds her baby, bundles him on her back and rushes to the market to buy vegetables to sell on the streets of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe she wishes her life were different.
With tears rolling down her cheeks, Zainab Salifu queued at the fevers unit of the Tamale Teaching Hospital in northern Ghana. Earlier in the day, the 18-year-old had been diagnosed HIV positive.
Four hundred Eighth Avenue, home to the largest welfare centre for people with AIDS in New York, is the kind of grey, drab city building that seems like it was dragged, scowling, into the 21
st Century.
Seventeen-year-old Natalie Mlambo* has two good reasons to get tested for HIV. She has two boyfriends and has unprotected sex with them. One is a high school classmate. The other is older, works in a bank, and can afford to give Mlambo small gifts and some money.