ABSTRACT
AIDS cannot be controlled anywhere until it is controlled everywhere. Jonathan Mann, London Lighthouse, 1996
Introduction The United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic of 20021 acknowledges that the epidemic is at an early stage of development and the long-term outcome unclear. What is known is that the majority of people infected and affected by HIV disease live in the developing world and have little or no access to the antiretroviral treatments described in previous chapters. The impact of this pandemic is an economic and social crisis of unparalleled proportions, affecting those countries that are least equipped to cope. Contributing to this are several interlinked issues: prevalence of HIV infection, poverty, politics and the power and status of women. In combination, these factors create specific problems for each resource-poor country, presenting different challenges and demanding individual solutions. Although lessons can be learned from other areas, each country needs to create its own plan of action that is multi-faceted and takes account of the forces driving its own national epidemic. In this chapter, we explore the underlying political, economic and gender issues that impact on the prevalence and treatment of HIV infection in the industrially developing world.
