Aids in Africa

As in the US, AIDS in Africa appears to occur much more frequently in large cities than in the rural areas, though this may be a reporting bias. “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome…. While in developing countries, the average is between 25 percent and 35 percent. African patients often prefer needle injections to oral medication because they believe it to be more effective. “AIDS first struck the labor concentrations in Uganda and then moved outward to the labor reserves, carried by migrant laborers and prostitutes as they return to their birthplaces for care and assistance with illnesses consequent to infection with this virus” (Bethel, 151). In Africa, the highest incidence of AIDS has been found among sexually active heterosexuals. In developing countries, the worry more about survival of the present moment which can mean that they face death from AIDS in five years from prostitution or death from starvation tomorrow from lack of money. Breastfeeding practices and access to drugs for reducing mother-to-child transmission are the two major reasons for this difference. 7 million children have died of AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic. However, “the complex mesh of factors associated with the disease means that currently there is no way to ascertain the relative importance of the various methods of transmission” (Bethel, 49). Also, it is convenient, approved by most cultures, and free. For example, it is difficult and unknown whether a prior history of sexually transmitted diseases is a risk factor because genital lesions facilitate the transmission of HIV or because of exposure to unsterilized needles for treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. This 1:1 ratio is said to be the result of the African men’s mentality of “taking” their women in a more violent style of sex, where as white civilized men in the West express a more gentle form of sex says Bethel (46). The women tend to be younger than men and a high percentage are thought to be prostitutes.