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TV Review: 'This is the wrong moment in history to sit on the fence," said Dr Mike Meegan, founder of ICROSS (International Community for the Relief of Starvation and Suffering) in the compelling documentary, When You Say Four Thousand Goodbyes.
The Terenure-born Meegan also gave us some statistics: every hour in Africa 250 people die of tuberculosis, 100 people die of malaria and 50 people die of Aids. Every hour the death toll further devastates a continent already on its knees, its infrastructure decimated by disease and poverty. About 25 million Africans have Aids, of whom two million will die this year. In Kenya, where there are more than one million Aids orphans. People collect stray children and give them shelter much as we might collect stray cats. Every week in Africa the poor get poorer. Between now and the time the coffee percolates, people will die without medication, some lying on sacking without a blanket or a mattress. A blanket, Meegan matter-of-factly told us, costs about €1.50, a mattress about €7.
