HIV/AIDS through Unsafe Medical Care (13)
-----------------------------------------
John Kiwaanuka Ssemakula wrote an interesting note to AFRO-NETS. He
asked,
"But if Africans are not having anymore sex that anyone else in the
world, why is HIV/AIDS spreading so fast. And what would this mean
for all the prevention programmes that are based on behaviour change
in sexual patterns...?"
Good question, but in fact outside Uganda and a very few other
places, AIDS prevention does not address the factor assumed to drive
the epidemic, namely having multiple sexual partners. Where do we put
our resources in AIDS prevention (and how do we establish our program
impact indicators)? In medical-technological solutions: in condom so-
cial marketing; in VCT which leads to condoms or drugs, or in PMTCT,
based on Nevirapine. We do not directly try to urge people to have
fewer sexual partners (outside Uganda).
Isn't that odd? Having multiple partners drives sexual transmitted
AIDS epidemics, yet we don't address sexual behavior. We might talk
about the ABC approach to prevention, but look where we put our re-
sources and program indicators.
Edward C Green, Ph.D.
Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
9 Bow Street
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
mailto:EGreendc@aol.com
--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org