Protecting Africa’s children from extreme risk: a runway of sustainability for PEPFAR programmes

After 20 years, the nightmares have returned. When I (LC) fall asleep, I’m back in the early 2000’s, as a social worker at Cape Town Child Welfare Society. AIDS was decimating an entire generation of parents; I found foster homes for children while their mothers lay dying on blankets in their shacks. I took trafficked girls aged 13 years for HIV testing, knowing what the results would be. I tried to explain to children aged 6 years why everyone who had ever cared for them was now dead.