Is HIV/AIDS a disease of poverty?

Year 2018, Volume: 9 Issue: 2, 57 - 65, 31.12.2018

Ali Rıza Can

Abstract

HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic. From the biomedical perspective,
HIV is a virus. HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The
virus attacks the immune system, and weakens the body’s ability
to fight infection and disease. In recent years, the participation
of anthropology in health research has been increasing.
Especially, in the 1980s anthropologists were drawn the AIDS
programme to make catalogue cultural practices that might carry
the risk of HIV transmission. By an anthropological perspective,
the HIV/AIDS epidemic is caused by poverty, starvation and
hunger, war, unemployment, uneven regional development, sex
traffic, migration and working away from home, prostitution and
selling sex, drug transactions, and discrimination. This work
considers the way in which poverty affects the HIV/AIDS
epidemic, and the causes of spreading HIV pandemic are not just
evaluated by poverty, also is evaluated considering by wealth.

Keywords

Medical anthropology, HIV/AIDS, poverty, inequality

References

• Aggleton P, Davies PM, Hart G. (1992) AIDS: rights, risk and reason. London: Falmer.