Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to emphasize factors in the spread and control of Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) that have thus far received insufficient attention in the literature or the international AIDS conferences, let alone in the AIDS control programs funded by high-resource donors. It discusses traditional healers themselves provide some description and discussion of their role as counselors in AIDS and Sexually tranmitted diseases prevention, as well as in related areas. Millions of dollars have been spent on promotion and millions of condoms have been distributed in Uganda, the African nation with the greatest number of AIDS cases, yet the percentage of men regularly using condoms was about 3 percent in early 1993. AIDS is primarily a heterosexually transmitted disease in sub-Saharan Africa, unlike the pattern found in the industrialized West.