World AIDS Day

"The scale of the AIDS pandemic is unprecedented," contend Salih Booker and William Minter. "But AIDS is like other widespread diseases in that it is fueled not only by unequal access to medical care but also by social and economic conditions. Poverty and gender inequality fuel the pandemic in Africa. Malnutrition reduces resistance to disease. Migrant labor patterns (well entrenched in Africa from colonialism and apartheid) raise the risk of infection. The proximate cause of the spread of AIDS is HIV, but vulnerability to infection is linked not only to behavior but especially to unequal power relations between women and men, and to poverty and living conditions [see Eileen Stillwaggon, "AIDS and Poverty in Africa"]. Poverty, in turn, is linked to race and to the structural position of communities within countries and of countries within the world economy.

"Thus debating what is to be done about AIDS keeps leading back to broader issues..."