Some of the bright, dynamic young people are being killed and taken away by this disease. You have lots of orphans without parents, being brought up by grandparents who themselves have difficulties, and the pace of the infection is such that if we do not confront it, we will perhaps have about 100 million people around the world infected.

It is a global problem. It's not just an African problem. I just came from, this year I was in Moscow and the Ukraine and I had the opportunity of discussing this with the leaders and with NGOs in those countries, encouraging them to do as much as they can to fight the disease.

Q: How has September 11th affected the fight against AIDS, because the world has changed?

SG: Well, I hope what happened on September 11th, as much as we need to fight terrorism, would also remind us that there are major problems out there. It may not be in our immediate community, but if we leave other communities unprotected and unassisted with certain major problems, they could boomerang. *****