‘AIDS-related National Crises' in Africa

Abstract

The HIV/AIDS pandemic will transform Africa as we know it. Historically pandemic diseases have brought major social economic and political transformations in their wakes. The Black Death in fourteenth century Europe killed about one-third of the population transformed labour-intensive agricultural systems and shattered the religious certainties of the Medical Renaissance with profound cultural and political ramifications. The introduction of smallpox and other communicable diseases to the Americas in the sixteenth century decimated the indigenous populations laying them open to colonial subjugation. Similarly communicable diseases ravaged nineteenth century. Africa and set the scene for the collapse of resistance to imperial conquest. HIV/AIDS has its unique characteristics. In the worst-hit countries where adult infection rates are 20 per cent or more it will have far-reaching effects. But there are no known models for anticipating what the outcomes will be. The direct impacts of HIV/AIDS on food security through its effects on household demographics and poor households budgets are well understood at the local level. (authors)