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Why is the AIDS rate so high in Africa? |
Why is the AIDS rate so high in Africa? A few reasons. The main one is that the pandemic has been brewing there for longer than most other places. It is much easier to get a pandemic under control if you recognise it early. Unfortunately, by the time HIV was recognised it was well established in many African countries. The second reason is that HIV spreads much more rapidly in the presence of other infections, and among people whose health is already under stress, and who don't have access to a basic standard of medical care. All these factors are present in many parts of Africa. The third reason has to do with culture and politics: for a long time some Africans preferred to deny that there was a problem, and were aided in this denial by certain Westerners. Poverty has been an indirect cause, for a whole lot of reasons including access to the kinds of health care and education most of us take for granted in the West. ------------------------------... "Ninety-nine percent of AIDS and HIV cases in Africa come from sexual transmission, and virtually all is heterosexual. So says the World Health Organization" according to "victoryforthetruth", below. I can't find any evidence to support such a claim. Not setting up a straw man argument, are we? Fumento's argument that Western perceptions of HIV transmission in Africa have focussed excessively on vaginal sex while ignoring transmission from heterosexual and homosexual anal sex, and unsafe puncturing practices including poor medical practice probably has some merit. And let's not forget perinatal transmission, which is largely preventable with good medical treatment and political will. But I think Fumento would be horrified to have his views aligned with those who pretend that HIV either does not exist, or is not the virus which causes AIDS. maybe because they havent been told about sex education or are a little behind in teaching them...using condoms may help The reasons for this have never been clear to me. The reasons that are offered include the following:- 1. immune systems impaired by other infections make easy path for HIV. 2. African men prefer unlubricated vaginas and that this is achieved by practices (unexplained) that involve cutting the women and there is accordingly blood transmission. 3. international truck drivers in Africa - black men who drive across African national boundaries. 4. high rate of promiscuity of blacks in Africa. 5. high rate of use of prostitution by black men. 6. high rate of heterosexual anal intercourse. A non dissident perspective. Massive airdrops of condoms won't stop African AIDS. Ninety-nine percent of AIDS and HIV cases in Africa come from sexual transmission, and virtually all is heterosexual. So says the World Health Organization, with other agencies toeing the line. Some massive condom airdrops accompanied by a persuasive propaganda campaign would practically make the epidemic vanish overnight. Or would it? A determined renegade group of three scientists has fought for years 鈥?with little success 鈥?to get out the message that no more than a third of HIV transmission in Africa is from sexual intercourse and most of that is anal. By ignoring the real vectors, they say, we're sacrificing literally millions of people. These men are no crackpots. John Potterat is author of 140 scholarly publications. He began working for the El Paso County, Colorado health department in 1972 and initiated the first U.S. partner-tracing program for AIDS/HIV. Stuart Brody, who has just accepted a full professorship in Psychology at University of Paisley in Scotland, has published over 100 scholarly publications, including a book called "Sex at Risk." Economist and anthropologist David Gisselquist has almost 60 scholarly publications to his name and is currently advising the government of India on staunching its potentially explosive epidemic. These renegades point out that a reason we know vaginal sex can't be the risk in Africa it's portrayed to be is that it hasn't been much of one risk in the U.S. Here 12 percent of AIDS cases are "attributed to" heterosexual transmission, meaning they claimed to have gotten it that way. Of these, over a third are males. Yet San Francisco epidemiologist Nancy Padian evaluated 72 male partners of HIV-infected women over several years, during which time only one man was infected. Even in that case, there were "several instances of vaginal and penile bleeding during intercourse." So even the small U.S. heterosexual figure appears grossly exaggerated. The chief reason it's so hard to spread HIV vaginally is that, as biopsies of vaginal and cervical tissue show, the virus is unable to penetrate or infect healthy vaginal or cervical tissue. Various sexually transmitted diseases allow vaginal HIV infection, but even those appear to increase the risk only by about 2-4 times. So if vaginal intercourse can't explain the awful African epidemic, what can? Surely it's not homosexuality, since we've been told there is none in Africa. In fact, the practice has long been widespread. For example, German anthropologist Kurt Falk reported in the 1920s that bisexuality was almost universal among the male populations of African tribes he studied. Medical records also show that African men who insist they're straighter than the proverbial arrow often suffer transmissible anorectal diseases. Yet almost certainly greater 鈥?and more controllable 鈥?contributors to the African epidemic are "contaminated punctures from such sources as medical injections, dental injections, surgical procedures, drawing as well as injecting blood, and rehydration through IV tubes," says Brody. You don't even need to go to a clinic to be injected with HIV: Almost two-thirds of 360 homes visited in sub-Saharan Africa had medical injection equipment that was apparently shared by family members. This, says Brody, can explain why both a husband and wife will be infected. For those who care to look, there are many indicators that punctures play a huge role in the spread of disease. For example, during the 1990s HIV increased in Zimbabwe at approximately 12 percent annually, even as condom use increased and sexually transmitted infections rapidly fell. Or consider that in a review of nine African studies, HIV prevalence in inpatient children ranged from 8.2% to 63% 鈥?as many as three times the prevalence in women who'd given birth. If the kids didn't get the virus from their mothers or from sex, whence its origin? Investigations of large clinical outbreaks in Russia, Romania, and Libya demonstrate HIV can be readily transmitted through pediatric health care. Until we stop HIV spread through needles, we won't stop HIV spread in Africa. Good people can differ on exactly how much of the HIV in Africa is spread vaginally 鈥?including our three renegades themselves. Nevertheless, their findings readily belie the official figures. AIDS studies in Africa, Potterat says, are "First World researchers doing second rate science in Third World countries." There's no one reason for the mass deception. In part, once people have established any paradigm it becomes much easier to justify than challenge. "These guys are wearing intellectual blinders," says Potterat. "Only a handful are even looking at routes other than sex. They have sex on the brain." Other reasons: Grant money goes to those who follow the dictates of the paradigm, not to those challenging it. "Sex is sexy," notes Potterat. There's fear that blame for the epidemic will fall on the medical profession. To the extent sex vaginal sex does play a role in spreading the disease, there's fear people will stop worrying about it. Finally, says Brody, for researchers to concede they were wrong would be "to admit they're complicit in mass death. That's hard to admit that to yourself, much less to other people." Hard, yes. And too late for many. But not too late for millions more in Africa and other underdeveloped nations 鈥?if we act now. http://www.fumento.com/disease/aids2005.... AIDS originated on the African continent, tribal africans were having s ex with apes, apes are known to be carriers of the AIDS virus Its a mixture of ignorance and social habits. Men have no stigma attached to them if they visit prostitutes and often condoms are not used. |
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