ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that an understanding of the full dimensions of the AIDS outbreak in Africa, what Jonathan Mann has described as the “third epidemic,” requires that the discussion be broadened. The AIDS epidemic in Africa, first reported in 1983 among patients from Central Africa who sought medical care in European centers, has now reached major proportions. Since the initial studies of AIDS in Africa, the appreciation of the modes of transmission has expanded, but the basic framework remains unchanged: AIDS in Africa is a sexually transmitted disease with no special risk groups. The heterosexual transmission of AIDS in Africa poses a frightening specter to the West. Although heterosexual transmission had been identified in North America prior to the description of AIDS in Africa, the number of such cases was small and, though growing, remains small. The path of the AIDS epidemic among both women and men in Africa understood apart from the realities of commerce and civil strife.
