Giuliano Rizzardini, an AIDS clinician at the University of Milan, first began working in Uganda in 1985, shortly after finishing his medical degree. He ended up joining St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital, which then was run by Piero Corti, an Italian pediatrician, and Lucille Teasdale, a surgeon. Although Corti is still in charge, Teasdale, who became infected by HIV during surgery, since has died from AIDS. Shortly after examining this patient's chest x-ray at Lacor's sprawling TB ward--where about half the patients are HIV-infected--Rizzardini walks over to a large tree on the hospital grounds. At its base is Teasdale's grave, and Rizzardini notes that she died in 1996, "just before the arrival of HAART." This sad comment refers to highly active antiretroviral treatments, the cocktails now widely available in developed countries that Teasdale likely could have received. And it is doubly sad because in these poor, northern reaches of Uganda, HAART is so expensive it still may just as well not exist.

(Photograph by Malcolm Linton)

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