The US helped prevent AIDS from being a death sentence in Africa. Now the epidemic is at a crossroads

Tembisa, South Africa
CNN
 — 

Fourteen-year-old Philasande Dayimani carries a burden that no child should carry.

Last year, she started getting sores in her mouth and struggled to breathe. She says a clinic doctor told her to test for HIV.

“It wasn’t easy for me to accept. Many people cry when they hear about their status. I also cried,” she says, seated in her small shack in Tembisa, an informal settlement north of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Dressed in a crisp brown school uniform, she retreats behind a curtain to a bedroom and brings back a canvas shopping bag with three containers of pills.

“These are the most important ones,” she tells CNN, pointing out her antiretroviral medication. Weeks after starting the pills, she felt well again.

Several years ago, Dayimani’s mother died of suspected AIDS. Now, she lives with her older brother….