ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies whether migrant mineworkers are vulnerable to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and, if so, how the spread of disease can be limited. Geographic mobility, migration, and widespread population displacement have also been identified as significant risk factors in the transmission of HIV. The role of the migrant labor system in transmitting diseases over a wide geographic area as workers carry diseases they have contracted in towns back to their homes has been documented for tuberculosis and might also hold in the case of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The size of the migrant population indicates the potential future significance of HIV infection. Venereal diseases were unknown in southern Africa before colonization. Industrialization, particularly the rapid growth of the mining industry with the migrant labor system it created, led to the emergence of new diseases. Statistics on the current prevalence of STDs in urban and rural populations are also a source of concern.
