Mark S
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Mr. Moody Freshman Topics W. Geography
Fourth Period
Questions to Death Stalks a Continent
1) In Africa, there is a great ignorance towards HIV/AIDS, which impedes on medicinal development and controlling the epidemic. The three main ignorances and set-backs are peoples denial, lack of knowledge, and shame/taboo (not wanting or being able to talk openly about it).
2) According to Mary Crewe, the common perception of those who are infected with HIV/AIDS is that the person infected seems to think they did something wrong and others deem them as living an immoral life. A big set-back for Africans is that it is taboo for them to speak of sexual actions, and therefore schools and clinics cannot openly educate people, and if they try, it is not accepted.
3) Many men work in the truck-driving industry. This helps spread the epidemic, making it more widespread and prominent. What happens is because many men are truck drivers and therefore have to move around geographically a lot, they have sex with prostitutes along the way, and if the man is infected with AIDS, they infect everyone they encounter. This brings the deadly virus to remote places where AIDS has not yet affected people, but now it will.
4) Men in Africa are very resistant to condoms, and society in general is ignorant towards all kinds of contraception. Men seem to think it is not very masculine to protect themselves, and many times, they do not understand the benefits of having protected sex for the health-benefits of their partner and/or themselves.
Questions to The Fidelity Fix
1) Basically, fidelity is defined as the faithful performance of a specific duty.. In this article, the author will ask the question, why is faithfulness and ones belief not part of the fight against AIDS.
2) In 1990, HIV/AIDS infections in Uganda dramatically decreased. This rapid fall was mainly because teenagers (both girls and boys) started to show abstinence. The choice of abstinence on the young males part played a much bigger factor of the decline in Uganda.
3) According to Rachel Jewkes, an epidemiologist working with South Africa and their HIV/AIDS epidemic believes that gender relations are in a very bad state. This plays a factor in the amount of new infections. Because of so many men, even a womens husband/boyfriend have AIDS, the women does not want to be infected, but because of cultural taboos and males resistance towards protection, such infections will occur. Educating and convincing the male population those women are important and have rights too, will greatly help reduce the increase of which the virus is growing.
4) In Africa, for the sake of controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic, long term concurrencies are much better than one night stands. When a person is infected, it is much easier for him/her to infect others, while on the other hand, someone who has been infected for a while, is less likely to transmit it to another person. Thus, if people engage in long-term relationships, HIV/AIDS will not spread as quickly.