Lauren Berg
SOC 420
First Midterm
4/17/12
AIDS in Africa
Charles Hunt’s research, Migrant Labor
and Sexually Transmitted Diseases: AIDS in Africa, used historical
materialist epidemiology and the dependency theory to analyze the HIV/AIDS
epidemic of Africa. It explains how the epidemiology of the “AIDS belt” is a
product of the labor systems that were implemented during colonialism. The
conclusions drawn about AIDS in Uganda are relevant throughout the AIDS belt
and disprove other theories regarding the origin and behaviors of disease.
The AIDS patterns in Africa are related but
distinct from those of developed countries. Similar to Africa, in the United
States HIV spread through an already vulnerable population. There was a high
prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and little use of protection in
the US homosexual population prior to the onset of the AIDS epidemic. These
factors increased their susceptibility to HIV contraction and caused the
homosexual population to be the initial route of the infection into the larger
population. During the US epidemic a substantial number of homosexual men,
bisexual men, and drug users were infected. These trends caused different
patterns of US infections than those in Africa. The US and Europe had a 16:1
ratio of HIV seropositive males to females, whereas Africa had a 1:1 ratio
(Hunt 1989). Another distinctive factor between AIDS in Africa and in
developed countries is the secondary diseases that often appear alongside AIDS.
Many of the secondary AIDS infections in Africa are worse than those of the US
and Europe.
The labor systems that were encumbered upon
Uganda during its colonial period caused the separation of many families. Women
and children were left in labor reserves in which their primary duties
consisted of providing food for the family. The men migrated to labor
concentration sites in which they worked for low wages. This separation of
families caused a proliferation in sexual partners, especially in the labor
concentration sites. Many women who were prostitutes in the labor
concentrations sites had STIs, which were thus spread throughout the labor
concentration sites. When men and prostitutes became ill, it was common for
them to return to their family, which caused a spread of STIs to the labor
reserves. Once HIV/AIDS appeared in the cities, it spread with ease through the
already vulnerable populations that had a great number of sexual partners and
preexisting STIs. AIDS spread first through the labor concentrations sites and
then to the labor reserves, constructing the pattern of AIDS in Uganda.
South Africa had a similar but more
developed labor system than Uganda and the other countries in the AIDS belt. At
the time that the AIDS in Africa research was conducted however, South
Africa did not have a high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS. This did not fit the
pattern of high infection rates throughout the other countries with this labor
system. Hunt hypothesized that this is a result of the stricter familial
separation and the later formation of the labor system in South Africa, and
that it was only a matter of time before the epidemic would spread to the
country. This hypothesis was correct; In 2003 South Africa had an estimated
prevalence of 5.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS, which is the highest in
the world (KFF 2005).
It was the world’s core economies push for
greater profit that caused the patterns of the HIV/AIDS in the Africa. As Karl
Marx wrote, “the drive for profit is a boundless thirst that chases the
capitalist over the whole surface of the globe in search for not only low-cost
labor but also inexpensive raw materials” (Ferrante 2011). The westernized
world, with an obsession for profit and little concern for the wellbeing of
laborers, created these disease ridden labor systems. As the world system
theory explains, colonization and exploitation are key elements in how the
global economy came to be, however tragic it is. Globalization and global
interdependence will keep most of Africa below the poverty line and prevent
many from receiving proper HIV/AIDS treatments. The current dynamics of the
world’s political economies will continue to cause enormous inequality and
suffering in Africa for many years to come.
Works Cited:
Kaiser family foundation
(KFF). (2005, Oct). Retrieved from
http://www.kff.org/hivaids/upload/7365.pdf
Ferrante, J., & Caldeira, C. (2010). Seeing
sociology, an introduction. (pp. 370-374). Wadsworth Pub Co.
