Salon.com News | The “worst catastrophe ever”: “The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the worst catastrophe in history and is blighting childhood across the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations said Thursday. Advances in children’s survival, health and education are being reversed by a ‘triple whammy’ of AIDS, conflict and poverty, according to the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF. The disease is driving the destruction of basic services for 1 billion children and violating their right to grow and develop, said Carol Bellamy, the organization’s executive director. ‘We believe AIDS is the worst catastrophe ever to hit the world,’ she told the Guardian. ‘It is just ripping up systems, be it health or education. Our children’s childhood is being robbed from them.'”