ABSTRACT
The syndrome that later received the name Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first announced by a communication published in the USA by the Centres for Disease Control (CDC): 'In the period October 1980–May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia [PCP]'. This chapter examines how AIDS has been conceptualised as an issue of global health. It describes the geographical imaginary of the first attempts to conceptualise AIDS as an issue of global health. The chapter outlines some of consequences of this global imaginary for AIDS policies, both in the USA and in South Africa. An early communication in The Lancet about AIDS among people of African origin began by listing the known risk groups for AIDS, remarking that condition had been found in 'homosexual or bisexual men, in drug addicts, in haemophiliacs, and in Haitian immigrants'. The epidemiological construction of a distinctively African AIDS was readily identified as racist by many cultural critics.
