HIV/AIDS will have a massive and long term impact on South African society. In the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal, extended families are already absorbing the consequences of what it means when both parents die. In this report, we meet Rose Vumase, a 64-year grandmother who lives in Manguzi, near the Mozambique border and we hear from economist, Alan Whiteside, director of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of Natal, Durban.