Can anyone tell me what the thesis statement is in this article. I am having a hard time finding it.
CNN) -- In coming to grips with AIDS, the worst health calamity since the Middle Ages and one likely to be the worst ever, consideration inevitably turns to the numbers.
According to estimates from UNAIDS, an umbrella group for five U.N. agencies, the World Bank and the World Health Organization, 34.3 million people in the world have AIDS -- 24.5 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly 19 million have died from AIDS, 3.8 million of them children under the age of 15.
Among the other statistics:
5.4 million new AIDS infections in 1999, 4 million of them in Africa.
2.8 million dead of AIDS in 1999, 85 percent of them in Africa.
13.2 million children orphaned by AIDS, 12.1 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
Reduced life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa from 59 years to 45 between 2005 and 2010, and in Zimbabwe from 61 to 33.
More than 500,000 babies infected in 1999 by their mothers -- most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
Finally, this: The bubonic plague is reckoned to have killed about 30 million people in medieval Europe. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that AIDS deaths and the loss of future population from the deaths of women of child-bearing age means that by 2010, sub-Saharan Africa will have 71 million fewer people than it would otherwise.
The numbers are staggering, but they do not begin to encompass the suffering and the dramas that put faces on the epidemic.
Read the whole article. What is is about. Then go back and read the first sentence. You can synthesize the thesis statement.
To find the thesis statement in the article, you need to look for the main argument or central idea that the author is trying to convey. The thesis statement is usually a clear and concise sentence that summarizes the main point of the article.
In this particular article, the author discusses the devastating impact of AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and presents various statistics to highlight the magnitude of the problem. However, there is no explicit thesis statement in the given text.
To determine the thesis statement, you can try to identify the main message that the author is trying to convey. In this case, it seems that the author's intention is to emphasize the severe consequences of AIDS, including the extensive loss of lives, the high number of infections, and the profound impact on the population. The author also mentions the comparison between AIDS and the bubonic plague to underscore the severity of the situation.
It is important to note that the absence of a clearly stated thesis statement in this article may be due to the nature of the piece, which seems more like an informative report rather than an argumentative essay.