Year 25+

In the 1980s, two trains collided in Africa. One was carrying the AIDS pandemic, the other, a broken health care system. Africa has been suffering from that train wreck ever since. The film "Year 25+: Healing Africa" returns to the scene twenty-five years later.
The AIDS pandemic strained an already strained health care system. Doctors and nurses fled abroad, or succumbed to the disease themselves. Fewer doctors meant little care for AIDS patients, let alone all the other ills of Arica, from TB to malaria. This worsening disease burden led to a vicious cycle- a greater patient load for doctors, more brain drain, more disease, more poverty.
To understand the enormity of this crisis in human resources, you need to understand the humans behind it- the providers. And to understand possible solutions, you need to understand what once seemed impossible. Not only has a network of AIDS care providers arisen in parts of Africa, but this network is now at the vanguard of health provision.
This story looks at the three acts in this drama- the haunting past of millions of deaths, the promising present of AIDS care, and the challenging future to deliver this promise to not only AIDS patients, but to the child with malaria in a rural village, or the shantytown barber with multi-drug resistant TB. The film personalizes the drama by telling it through the eyes of six compelling characters at the frontlines of health care. It is a vital story, not just for Africa, but for health care everywhere in the developing world.