For the love of god, WHY?!?!
One factor is that Africa had a head start. When we realized what causes AIDS and how to prevent it’s spread, it was still a very localized disease in the West. But in Africa it had already spread pretty far along trucking routes and in areas where needles were being re-used in hospitals. Furthermore, because of poor education systems and infrastructure it took a lot longer to “get the word out” in Africa. Even today we’d encounter people in remote Cameroonian villages who did not know what AIDS was.
Africa’s medical systems have contributed. Where I lived, at least, people were injection-happy. Anyone visiting the hospital expected to receive an antibiotic injection, and would be disappointed if they did not get one. This no doubt helped spread AIDS. Another factor is that AIDS is just not as big of a deal in Africa. In the West, it is terrifying mainly because it is one of the few diseases that will strike down healthy young people. In Africa, there are any number of diseases that will do that- and much faster than AIDS.
I think it was Scientific American magazine that had an article on this problem over 10 years ago. Some issues:
-in many cultures, they guy on top doesn’t consider himself gay, and in fact may sleep with women too from social pressure as well as desire.
-the predominant transmission is heterosexual promiscuity. Central Africa is an area where the pope had to remind local preists forcefully that the church was serious about celibacy. “Proving your manhood” over and over is the norm.
- Many migratory workers may have a country wife and a city wife. This is especially true of the educated class who could support both. Thus, the educated class was harder hit by the spread of AIDS.
-there is a peculiar African concept of “dry sex” which the guy finds more pleasurable (???). The extra friction is so desired that men will make the woman dry herself out first. You thought the anus was fragile, I bet a dry vagina is worse? - the disease is thought to have originated there well before it was “discovered” in North America. It became evident here because a particular promiscuous group - gay men in some big cities like San Fran and NYC - managed to spread it across most of the community within a few years. It probably had been creeping up on Africa for a decade or more before that. With the usual health problems, who would notice a few more sick prostitutes or customers, or a slightly higher death rate.
-civil unreast is a real problem, not just because of gang rape but prostitutes follow armies, and disrupted social cultures lead to more promiscuity and mixing of sick populations. More chances to catch it.
-we have enough free press here that we forget what the rumor mill is like in a restricted country. Many africans believe it is a CIA or white man’s plot.
The other main reason for this reluctance is economic. When the average wage in Africa is less than $1 per day (and it’s been dropping for the last 40 years), the cost of a box of condoms is way too high for most people.
There’s that; plus the traditional male reluctance to use anything that interferes with his pleasure. Plus, many Africans think there’s no such thing as AIDS, it’s a conspiracy by prejudiced westerners to stop Africans from having more children. IIRC, even some minister in the South African government repeated that line just a few years ago.
Oh, and then there’s the usual problems, no different than anywhere else - where they do accept AIDS is real, the prejudice against suffers is not mitigated by political correctness; so people are in denial or hide it to avoid being driven out of their village. With the abysmal health care structure and lack of money, there are no routine tests; so usually the first indication that someone is infected is long after they’ve been spreading it, when they start to get really sick.
It seems to me that there are a lot of loose comments about “Africa” and when we’re talking about the Aids disaster in Africa, it’s really Central and Southern Sub Saharan Africa. West Africa, for example, is pretty low (not substantially worse than low-income Asia [rechecked the numbers, not the best characterisation, okay not hugely worse than a Thailand but still worse):
West Africa, from the Wiki page on Aids in Africa
Except Cameroun, which is more Central African than not, fairly low numbers as compared to the disaster of Southern Africa.
And someone ought to point out that these West African countries are mostly Muslim (besides Cameroon, which is largely Christian.) They are doing something right!
Steve Mosher in his “Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits” book (partially available through Google Books) makes an argument for transmission through unsanitary medical care, basically through syringes, in Africa. I think he basically claims that the more clinics / doctors visits similar there are in the area, the higher is the rate.
The guy does not appear unbiased to say the least, and he does not address confounding factors such as, let’s say, the wealthier areas having greater labor mobility (which might cause faster HIV spread) as well as more medics. Nevertheless, I don’t think this should be dismissed out of hand either. AFAIK some outbreaks in rural China were specifically traced to medical syringes, and presumably in rural Africa they could easily take even bigger liberties with the right way of doing things.
I recall a case in the news years ago regarding China. Apparently not only did they reuse needles without sterilizing them, when they took blood donations, they pooled all the blood together in big batches before redistributing it. One can only imagine how effective that was at spreading HIV.
Funerary customs play a role.
Bodies will have their intestines removed, & the cavity filled with leaves or sawdust. This is done by hand, by the female relatives of the deceased.
Likely plays a role.
This is a common practice all over Sub-Saharan Africa?
My parents lived in east Africa for most of 15 years. The '90s and early '00s.
What they heard, when talking to Tanzanians (8.8% adult infection rate in 2005), the 2 most commonly mentioned reasons for the spread of AIDS (Slims disease) were:
-
truck drivers: after driving from the rural to the urban centers, the drivers believed that being exposed to the “power” of the truck for long periods of time increased their sexual needs. They would visit prostitutes in the city, get infected, drive home, and have sex with their wives.
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deliberate spreading: a man would test positive for AIDS, and purposely go about having unprotected sex, because he was angry over having AIDS and striking out at “society”.
I’ve never seen numbers to back these up, but that is how educated Tanzanians were explaining it.
Certainly not. I think it is prevalent in some parts of central Africa. Local funeral rights like this are likely to be highly local. And of course, among Muslims (around 45% of Africans) Muslim funeral rights- which emphasize a quick and simple burial- prevail.
I would appreciate you checking your “facts” before posting. I checked both Ghana and Benin with the CIA factbook, and neither country has more than a 25 % muslim population.
Error on my part- I was looking at statistics for all of Africa, not Sub-Saharan Africa. My bad.
However, according to Wikipedia, 54% of West Africa is Muslim. And in my experience, Islam permeates West African cultures, especially Sahelian ones, to the point that even non-Muslims are still in many ways culturally Islamic.
I’ve had both American and Spanish guys refuse to use a condom. Reasons given included “it ain’t no fun with a rubber” and “what, you don’t trust me?” (Why should I trust you? You’re some dog I just met at a club, I don’t even know if the name you’ve given me is your real name and I’m the one with the big risks. Oh, and by the way, fuck off.)
That argument doesn’t work for South Africa, though, where free condoms are available from any public office (not just medical ones, but licence bureau, libraries etc).