Africa and AIDS: Dependent Development, Sexism, and Racism

Abstract

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is epidemic in the United States, but AIDS is more than just an epidemic. AIDS is a pandemic, meaning that it is worldwide in distribution and began in a number of areas in the world almost simultaneously. In fact, by March 1987, 44,652 cases of AIDS had been reported in 99 countries and on every continent in the world. It has appeared in the Pacific Oceania complex of islands and Australia, in South and Central America, and, although delayed in its appearance, it is also now present in Asia. Nowhere, however, is its appearance more ominous than in Africa.

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