The Ugandan woman, full of dreams of a family, farm and home of her own, once said, "But I feel I am haunted by ghosts that will not leave me."
She was 22, pregnant with her first child, and she had AIDS. She and her baby are buried in the African fields behind her parents' home.A young Thai prostitute, fresh from Bangkok brothels, returns home to her village in the north with badly needed cash for her family, but with a grim bonus this time: the AIDS virus.
A newborn boy in Bucharest, skeletal and abandoned, is transfused with AIDS-contaminated blood. Most of Romania's known AIDS victims are infants and children.
As of mid-1990, more than 266,000 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome have been reported to the World Health Organization from 150 countries. But WHO experts estimate AIDS may afflict 700,000 people. The disease is often neither reliably reported.
The global balance of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections, which cause AIDS, is rapidly shifting from industrialized nations to developing countries, says Michael H. Merson, director of WHO's global AIDS program.
Two-thirds of the estimated 8 million to 10 million HIV-infected people in the world now live in developing countries. Five years ago about half did. By the end of this decade about 80 percent will, Merson says.
AIDS has become a primarily heterosexual disease. At least 60 percent of the world's HIV infections result from heterosexual intercourse.
For many people in poorer countries, AIDS is a stigma or a curse - a sickness of shame and superstition. Ignorant, confused and scared, they suppress word of the virus.
The major reason the disease has switched to developing nations, Merson told National Geographic, is "a rise in the number of HIV infections in Asia, the most heavily populated part of the world. Initially infections were spread in Asian countries by intravenous drug users, then by prostitutes." At least 500,000 people are estimated to have been infected in the past two years.
Thailand's permissive and lucrative sex industry, a national tourist attraction, may make the Southeast Asian nation vulnerable to skyrocketing HIV-infection rates.
The virus was introduced there only about three years ago, Merson says. Today, experts estimate that as many as half of the prostitutes may be infected in some Thai cities. Health officials fear the disease's spread to the general population.
HIV infections are now most acute in sub-Saharan Africa, which has more than half of the world total. Unlike the pattern in most Western countries, where infected men predominate, African men and women are equally afflicted. WHO estimates one in 40 adults is infected there.
"Another tragedy of AIDS in Africa is that about a third of the babies born to infected mothers will be infected," says Dr. Joe H. Davis of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
AIDS has traveled through Central and East Africa along transportation routes and among urban prostitutes. A survey in Kenya found that a majority of Nairobi's prostitutes have the virus.
In Uganda, which reports 12,500 AIDS cases, more than any other African country, AIDS has invaded every district, striking farmers and townspeople alike. In some places a funeral for an AIDS victim takes place nearly every day. Children are often cared for by grandparents because AIDS killed both parents.
The AIDS toll also is heavy in Zaire, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi.
But "our fear that AIDS would be a plaguelike disease devastating some African populations appear unfounded, because fertility rates remain so high," Davis says.
Why have HIV infections slowed in most developed countries? Partly, Merson explains, "because of education within the gay community and a saturation level among intravenous drug users." The United States still leads in reported AIDS cases, nearly 134,000.
Although France, West Germany, Spain and Italy cite the most cases in Europe, the Romanian situation is shocking, says Dr. William Griffo of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, who recently worked there.
Romania's AIDS babies weren't born infected. They were injected with the virus through blood transfusions or unclean needles.
"I had never seen such deprivation and cruelty toward children, such ignorance and superstition surrounding AIDS," Griffo says. "Nurses recoiled at me picking up these babies without gloves and a mask."
The extent of the Romanian epidemic is unknown. As the isolated nation opens its doors, Griffo fears the disease could accelerate. "Prostitutes hanging around hotels haven't a clue what HIV is."