City Dwellers Are From Mars, Rural Dwellers Are From Venus, Or Something Like That Despite the monstrous quantities of 'unsafe' sex that Africans are claimed to engage in by UNAIDS and other HIV institutions, HIV is not at all distributed evenly. Prevalence ranges from less than 1% in some African countries, a lot less than in some US cities, to more than 25% of the adult population in others (and even 50% in some demographic groups). Even within high prevalence countries HIV is not distributed evenly. In many African countries the virus tends to be far more common in cities, close to main roads, close to health facilities, among wealthier and better educated people, etc. It is also generally far more common among women than among men.
Other research has found HIV prevalence to be higher in areas where diseases such as schistosomiasis (bilharzia) and malaria are higher. However, as these both tend to be higher among less wealthy people with lower levels of education and in rural, as opposed to urban areas, there is more than a suggestion that HIV transmission may have widely varying risk factors. Yet UNAIDS and friends tend not to dwell on most forms of non-sexual risk in Africa.
As David Gisselquist writes in the Don't Get Stuck With HIV website: "Unlike Western countries, where almost all HIV transmission occurs outside families, a lot of HIV transmission in Africa happens within families – mother-to-child and spouse-to-spouse transmission together account for an estimated 45% of new infections." Not only is a lot of HIV not transmitted sexually, but a lot is not transmitted through 'unsafe' sex. Many of these couples where at least one partner is infected have no sexual risks. Hundreds of thousands of new infections every year occur through these two routes.
In Africa, then, the main groups are those at risk of mother to child transmission and married couples, especially couples where one partner has been infected. It's as likely to be the female as the male partner, but how does the index partner become infected, the first in the couple? Sex, says UNAIDS, but sex with whom, how much sex and what kind of sex? Heterosexual sex is not an efficient means of transmitting HIV. Gisselquist is suggesting that the focus of international HIV reduction efforts in African countries should address these and other risk groups, where sexual risk is very likely to be low but HIV prevalence is high; this could cut as many as 700,000 transmissions annually.
A serious set of risk factors could arise from unsafe healthcare and perhaps even unsafe cosmetic services. It's not just that conditions in healthcare and cosmetic facilities in African countries are primitive but also that many people are not aware that such risks exist; if they are not aware of the risks, they will not know that they need to avoid them, nor how to avoid them. But if they are aware, they will also realize that a person's HIV status is not a reliable indication of their sexual behavior. This should reassure some who have been brainwashed to associate HIV with 'immoral' behavior; many women, especially, have been beaten by their partners, ostracized by their communities and even killed because of the incorrect association of HIV with sexual behavior.
The HIV industry does talk a lot about the importance of HIV testing. But they also put people off testing where being positive has such terrible consequences. If people were to know that there were other, non-sexual risks, the stigma associated with testing and with having (or being thought to have) HIV should reduce. People who know their status don't tend to take risks, neither sexual nor non-sexual; but they must also be advised of the non-sexual risks. Those who are infected non-sexually can be involved in sexual transmission just as easily as those who are infected sexually. But in the current climate of sex-obsessed HIV policies, they are unlikely to know about non-sexual risk.
Prevention of mother to child HIV transmission is vital if the mother is already infec read more..
