• 33 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS and that number grows every year;
• Without the necessary data to corroborate the intuitive findings, it is a generally accepted assumption that malaria is the most deadly disease in the South. One out of ten children suffer from mental disorder – epilepsy, learning disabilities and a loss of coordination - caused by cerebral malaria;
• The risk to catch HIV/AIDS is three times as high for people with disabilities than for others.

Every individual living in the South comes to deal with HIV/AIDS, malaria or other fatal diseases at one point or another in their lives. People with disabilities are no exception to the rule. Every day new people get infected with on or several of these diseases. Information campaigns, services and initiatives about prevention and care prove to be most effective in averting permanent disability for patients suffering from meningitis, malaria and tuberculosis.

Misconceptions about the behaviour and activities of people with disabilities still reign the public perception. Despite the prevailing opinion that they’re not sexually active, don’t drink or do drugs and they are not exposed to sexual abuse and violence, people with disabilities are human beings just like the rest of us. They run the same risks and are exposed to the same dangers. Nevertheless, they’re excluded from the information and prevention campaigns and from the available heath care system and services that battle against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other fatal diseases.

The substantial socio-economical cost of the treatment of these diseases is a burden to most individuals but utterly present for people with disabilities. They are more likely to be poor and they experience poverty more intensely than most. Additionally, organizations working with people with disabilities do not generally focus on prevention and sensitization campaigns about HIV/AIDS, malaria and other fatal diseases. Special attention for people with disabilities in the regular health care system in relation to HIV/AIDS, malaria and fatal diseases is a primary condition for improving the health of people with disabilities.