Why is the AIDS rate so high in Africa?!
Question:
Why is the AIDS rate so high in Africa?
Answers:
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.
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"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.