HIV represents the "single greatest threat to national welfare and development" in many developing countries but also in global terms according to Dr Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Speaking in the Hague this month, he said nine of
the 10 worst affected countries are in Africa and in these a 10th of the adult population has HIV. "Yet we have learned that nations are not powerless under that cloud," he said and that communities can face up to the virus and decrease the danger it poses.