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Medical Anthropology 2008While it is increasingly recognized that contextually relevant HIV prevention and AIDS mitigation interventions are more likely to succeed than enforced generic...
While it is increasingly recognized that contextually relevant HIV prevention and AIDS mitigation interventions are more likely to succeed than enforced generic strategies, relatively little attention has been given to understanding the manner in which affected individuals and communities themselves perceive and subsequently experience the epidemic. Drawing on research undertaken in the Caprivi region of Namibia, this article challenges dominant biomedical HIV/AIDS discourse and demonstrates the important role of alternative illness narratives in shaping local understandings of and responses to HIV/AIDS. Four interlinked illness narratives are examined: the relationship between illness and resource use, gender and pollution, religious ideas about morality, and witchcraft accusations. Links are made between these narratives and threats to the social and moral order brought about by socioeconomic change. While treatment sought can initially be influenced by the illness narrative employed, an overriding concern to cure the ill person combined with a range of coexisting social pressures to be seen to be doing the "right thing" ultimately play a more significant role in determining treatment.
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Attitude to Health; Cultural Characteristics; Female; Humans; Male; Medicine, Traditional; Morals; Namibia; Narration; Witchcraft
PubMed: 18663639
DOI: 10.1080/01459740802222716 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Feb 1989AIDS is an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome defined by a severe depletion of T cells and over 20 conventional degenerative and neoplastic diseases. In the U.S. and... (Review)
Review
AIDS is an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome defined by a severe depletion of T cells and over 20 conventional degenerative and neoplastic diseases. In the U.S. and Europe, AIDS correlates to 95% with risk factors, such as about 8 years of promiscuous male homosexuality, intravenous drug use, or hemophilia. Since AIDS also correlates with antibody to a retrovirus, confirmed in about 40% of American cases, it has been hypothesized that this virus causes AIDS by killing T cells. Consequently, the virus was termed human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and antibody to HIV became part of the definition of AIDS. The hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS is examined in terms of Koch's postulates and epidemiological, biochemical, genetic, and evolutionary conditions of viral pathology. HIV does not fulfill Koch's postulates: (i) free virus is not detectable in most cases of AIDS; (ii) virus can only be isolated by reactivating virus in vitro from a few latently infected lymphocytes among millions of uninfected ones; (iii) pure HIV does not cause AIDS upon experimental infection of chimpanzees or accidental infection of healthy humans. Further, HIV violates classical conditions of viral pathology. (i) Epidemiological surveys indicate that the annual incidence of AIDS among antibody-positive persons varies from nearly 0 to over 10%, depending critically on nonviral risk factors. (ii) HIV is expressed in less than or equal to 1 of every 10(4) T cells it supposedly kills in AIDS, whereas about 5% of all T cells are regenerated during the 2 days it takes the virus to infect a cell. (iii) If HIV were the cause of AIDS, it would be the first virus to cause a disease only after the onset of antiviral immunity, as detected by a positive "AIDS test." (iv) AIDS follows the onset of antiviral immunity only after long and unpredictable asymptomatic intervals averaging 8 years, although HIV replicates within 1 to 2 days and induces immunity within 1 to 2 months. (v) HIV supposedly causes AIDS by killing T cells, although retroviruses can only replicate in viable cells. In fact, infected T cells grown in culture continue to divide. (vi) HIV is isogenic with all other retroviruses and does not express a late, AIDS-specific gene. (vii) If HIV were to cause AIDS, it would have a paradoxical, country-specific pathology, causing over 90% Pneumocystis pneumonia and Kaposi sarcoma in the U.S. but over 90% slim disease, fever, and diarrhea in Africa.(viii) It is highly improbable that within the last few years two viruses (HIV-1 and HIV-2) that are only 40% sequence-related would have evolved that could both cause the newly defined syndrome AIDS. Also, viruses are improbable that kill their only natural host with efficiencies of 50-100%, as is claimed for HIVs. It is concluded that HIV is not sufficient for AIDS and that it may not even be necessary for AIDS because its activity is just as low in symptomatic carriers as in asymptomatic carriers. The correlation between antibody to HIV and AIDS does not prove causation, because otherwise indistinguishable diseases are now set apart only on the basis of this antibody. I propose that AIDS is not a contagious syndrome caused by one conventional virus or microbe. No such virus or microbe would require almost a decade to cause primary disease, nor could it cause the diverse collection of AIDS diseases. Neither would its host range be as selective as that of AIDS, nor could it survive if it were as inefficiently transmitted as AIDS. Since AIDS is defined by new combinations of conventional diseases, it may be caused by new combinations of conventional pathogens, including acute viral or microbial infections and chronic drug use and malnutrition. The long and unpredictable intervals between infection with HIV and AIDS would then reflect the thresholds for these pathogenic factors to cause AIDS diseases, instead of an unlikely mechanism of HIV pathogenesis.
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Animals; HIV; HIV Seropositivity; Humans; Models, Theoretical
PubMed: 2644642
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.86.3.755 -
American Journal of Public Health Oct 1991
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Europe; Humans; Substance Abuse, Intravenous; United States
PubMed: 1928519
DOI: 10.2105/ajph.81.10.1247 -
Journal of the International... 2017This community-based cross-sectional epidemiological study was performed to assess the awareness and attitude of youths toward AIDS in a rural area of West Bengal in...
INTRODUCTION
This community-based cross-sectional epidemiological study was performed to assess the awareness and attitude of youths toward AIDS in a rural area of West Bengal in India.
METHODS
Study population included 190 individuals (15-24 years). Data were collected using a semistructured, pretested questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS version 17 by logistic regression model.
RESULTS
It was revealed that older youths and particularly men compared to women had more comprehensive knowledge of AIDS than adolescents. Education, media exposure, marriage, and possessing above poverty level (APL) status, all had stronger positive association with youths (more in men) having comprehensive knowledge of AIDS. Older, never married youths, and particularly men were more likely than adolescents to have accepting attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS. Education, media exposure, and not having below poverty level card, all had stronger positive association with youths having accepting attitudes toward women than toward men. Surprisingly among the male APL population, this association was negative.
CONCLUSION
Educational and socioeconomic setbacks should be overcome in order to impose a better and justified attitude toward HIV/AIDS. Improved health conditions, proper counseling, and knowledge are essential to break the barriers of communication and ignorance toward HIV/AIDS in these parts of the developing countries.
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Adolescent; Adult; Awareness; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; India; Male; Rural Population; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult
PubMed: 24943656
DOI: 10.1177/2325957414539196 -
Cuadernos de Bioetica : Revista Oficial... 2008According to the December 2006 UNAIDS report, by the end of 2006 approximately 39.5 million people in the world were living with HIV/AIDS. In 2006, about 4.3 million...
According to the December 2006 UNAIDS report, by the end of 2006 approximately 39.5 million people in the world were living with HIV/AIDS. In 2006, about 4.3 million people worldwide became infected and 8,000 people a day died of HIV/AIDS. About half of the new infections occurred in young people aged between 15 and 24. In December 2004, The Lancet published an international consensus on the "ABC strategy" for AIDS prevention, which can be considered a turning point in HIV/AIDS prevention. The Lancet Consensus recommends segmenting information, depending on the audience to be targeted. The Consensus insisted that the first priority for young people should be to encourage "abstinence" or postponing the start of sexual relations. Once sexual relations are initiated, a return to "abstinence" or maintaining mutually monogamous sexual relations with an uninfected person should be encouraged. If the campaigns targets people at high risk of exposure to HIV exposure the first priority should be to encourage the correct and consistent use of condoms, but warning them that condom use can reduce, but not eliminate, the risk of infection. Little attention and almost no resources have been devoted to "risk avoidance " interventions, such as delaying the start of sexual relations or maintaining mutually monogamous sexual relations (components A and B). Nevertheless, scientific evidence indicates that risk avoidance; which has been largely neglected in the international response to the disease, is probably what is desperately needed to stop the HIV/AIDS epidemic and alleviate its consequences at all levels.
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Humans; Risk Reduction Behavior; Social Justice
PubMed: 19166257
DOI: No ID Found -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Feb 1991The newly defined syndrome AIDS includes 25 unrelated parasitic, neoplastic, and noninfectious indicator diseases. Based on epidemiological correlations, the syndrome is... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
The newly defined syndrome AIDS includes 25 unrelated parasitic, neoplastic, and noninfectious indicator diseases. Based on epidemiological correlations, the syndrome is thought to be due to a new, sexually or parenterally transmitted retrovirus termed human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The following epidemiological data conflict with this hypothesis. (i) Noncorrelations exist between HIV and AIDS; for example, the AIDS risks of infected subjects vary greater than 10-fold with their gender or country. Abnormal health risks that are never controlled as independent AIDS causes by AIDS statistics, such as drug addiction and hemophilia, correlate directly with an abnormal incidence of AIDS diseases. Above all, the AIDS diseases occur in all risk groups in the absence of HIV. (ii) American AIDS is incompatible with infectious disease, because it is almost exclusively restricted to males (91%), because if it occurs, then only on average 10 years after transfusion of HIV, because specific AIDS diseases are not transmissible among different risk groups, and because unlike a new infectious disease, AIDS has not spread exponentially since the AIDS test was established and AIDS received its current definition in 1987. (iii) Epidemiological evidence indicates that HIV is a long-established, perinatally transmitted retrovirus. HIV acts as a marker for American AIDS risks, because it is rare and not transmissible by horizontal contacts other than frequent transfusions, intravenous drugs, and repeated or promiscuous sex. It is concluded that American AIDS is not infectious, and suggested that unidentified, mostly noninfectious pathogens cause AIDS.
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Africa; Biomarkers; Female; HIV; HIV Antibodies; Humans; Male; Models, Theoretical; Risk Factors; Sex Factors; United States
PubMed: 1996359
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.88.4.1575 -
Revista Chilena de Infectologia :... Jun 2010
Topics: AIDS Serodiagnosis; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Anti-HIV Agents; Chile; Drug Resistance, Viral; Female; HIV; Humans; Informed Consent; Male; Pregnancy
PubMed: 20737127
DOI: No ID Found -
Chinese Medical Journal Nov 2022
Topics: Humans; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Mycoses; Antifungal Agents; Talaromyces
PubMed: 36719357
DOI: 10.1097/CM9.0000000000002506 -
American Journal of Public Health Oct 1993The popular and scientific understanding of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the United States has been shaped by successive historical constructions or...
The popular and scientific understanding of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the United States has been shaped by successive historical constructions or paradigms of disease. In the first paradigm, AIDS was conceived of as a "gay plague," by analogy with the sudden, devastating epidemics of the past. In the second, AIDS was normalized as a chronic disease to be managed medically over the long term. By examining and extending critiques of both paradigms, it is possible to discern the emergence of an alternative paradigm of AIDS as a collective chronic infectious disease and persistent pandemic. Each of these constructions of AIDS incorporates distinct views of the etiology, prevention, pathology, and treatment of disease; each tacitly promotes different conceptions of the proper allocation of individual and social responsibility for AIDS. This paper focuses on individualistic vs collective, and biomedical vs social and historical, understandings of disease. It analyzes the use of individualism as methodology and as ideology, criticizes some basic assumptions of the biomedical model, and discusses alternative strategies for scientific research, health policy, and disease prevention.
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Attitude of Health Personnel; Biomedical Research; Chronic Disease; Complementary Therapies; Female; History, 20th Century; Homosexuality; Humans; Male; Personal Autonomy; Public Opinion; Risk Factors
PubMed: 8214245
DOI: 10.2105/ajph.83.10.1477 -
Journal of the National Medical... May 1988The availability of imaging modalities, such as the chest radiograph, gallium scan, double-contrast barium enema, computed tomography, and nuclear magnetic resonance,... (Review)
Review
The availability of imaging modalities, such as the chest radiograph, gallium scan, double-contrast barium enema, computed tomography, and nuclear magnetic resonance, are very helpful in the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up evaluation of patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Because this syndrome causes irreversible destruction of the immune system, patients are susceptible to a multitude of opportunistic infections and malignancies. Health care professionals and the general public would be less fearful and apprehensive of AIDS victims if properly informed about the communicability of this syndrome.
Topics: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Communicable Disease Control; Female; Health Education; Health Workforce; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Male; Pregnancy
PubMed: 3047412
DOI: No ID Found