By Rupert Everett

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Author Rupert Everett photographed at Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, in July 2004

The actor and Vanity Fair contributor visits the heart of darkness in Asia's ongoing battle against H.I.V./AIDS

"Cambodia is facing an AIDS crisis virtually unparalleled in the rest of Asia. The nation's health-care system is woefully overmatched and the average person lives on about five dollars a day. This beautiful country gasps for breath, plagued by governmental instability and a deeply traumatic past: an estimated 600,000 died in the 1970–1975 civil war, many as a result of U.S. bombing raids that began in 1969; soon thereafter, 1.7 million were killed or starved to death under the oppressive reign of the Khmer Rouge. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has approved $25 million in AIDS funding for Cambodia over the next two years, more than $8 million of which is already in the country. I'm here to see how it's being spent."

View the video low | high — VIDEO SPECIAL — A Cambodian orphan: testimony of granddaughter and grandmother Eight-year old Nita lost both her parents to AIDS but blames her father for introducing the virus into the family. Her grandmother blames herself for forcing her daughter to marry a man she did not want to marry. Meet this small family as they speak about their loss through AIDS…

"Formed in the wake of the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa, the Global Fund is designated for the treatment of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Funded mostly by governments, and to a certain extent the private sector, it is unusual in that it does not seek to control its recipients. It simply responds to the needs and requests of each individual country. However, every time a new major player enters the field of international health care, whole new systems and protocols are created. The money must be protected, as it navigates its way from banks in Geneva through greedy drug companies, corrupt governments (First and Third World), and sometimes dodgy recipients, to the patient on the ground. The good news is that with a proper modus operandi in place the Global Fund will be an excellent organization to partner with the Third World in the fight against these three diseases."