People with HIV/AIDS can live healthy lives for longer if proper care and support is provided. Your immune system can be strengthened by medical treatment, food, rest and exercise. You can cope much better if you are happy and feel productive. Emotional support and a positive attitude will help you to avoid depression. A lot can also be done to avoid the devastating effects that illness and death have on families and children.

At the moment families and sometimes just individuals, cope with HIV/AIDS without much community support. In most cases, very few people know that someone is HIV positive and when they become ill, their families and children bear the burden alone. Children and partners also have to deal with the grief of watching a loved one suffer and die. The research found that most families who lost someone, spent about one year nursing the person once they became seriously ill.

Recent research shows that about 40% of families where someone is ill with AIDS, survive on less than R1000 per month. Illness and death of a breadwinner usually increases poverty. Poor people do not have the resources to provide proper care for someone with HIV/AIDS.

Many countries in Africa and South America have developed community-based programs