ABSTRACT
HIV/AIDS is a pervasive threat to the health and life of many individuals, especially in the high prevalence regions of sub-Saharan Africa. It limits the socioeconomic development of those communities and countries where HIV/AIDS prevalence is high. While the threat of HIV/AIDS to state-level security appears to have been exaggerated, the threat to human and health security in sub-Saharan Africa has been underestimated. The securitisation of HIV/AIDS by the UN in 2000 assigned to this disease the urgency and importance traditionally only afforded to wars between states. In S. Elbe's opinion the securitisation of HIV/AIDS has been responsible for the development of a global biopolitical economy of power dominated by the USA and other Western democracies, through these hugely powerful internationheaal organisations. The global HIV/AIDS pandemic has been instrumental in putting health at the centre of the human security debate as a consequence of the securitisation of the disease by UN Resolution 1308 in 2000.
