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Very Short Introductions #174
HIV/AIDS: A Very Short Introduction
HIV/AIDS is without doubt the worst epidemic to hit humankind since the Black Death. As of 2004 an estimated 40 million people were living with the disease, and about 20 million had died. Despite rapid scientific advances there is still no cure and the drugs are expensive and toxic. In the
developing world, especially in parts of Africa, life expectancy has plummeted to below 35 years, causing a serious decline in economic growth, a sharp increase in orphans, and the imminent collapse of health care systems. The news is not all bleak though. There have been unprecedented breakthroughs
in understanding diseases and developing drugs. Because the disease is so closely linked to sexual activity and drug use, the need to understand and change behavior has caused us to reassess what it means to be human and how we should operate in the globalizing world. This Very Short Introduction
tackles the science, the international and local politics, the fascinating demographics, and the devastating consequences of the disease, and suggests how we must respond.
About the Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always
balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the
series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.
developing world, especially in parts of Africa, life expectancy has plummeted to below 35 years, causing a serious decline in economic growth, a sharp increase in orphans, and the imminent collapse of health care systems. The news is not all bleak though. There have been unprecedented breakthroughs
in understanding diseases and developing drugs. Because the disease is so closely linked to sexual activity and drug use, the need to understand and change behavior has caused us to reassess what it means to be human and how we should operate in the globalizing world. This Very Short Introduction
tackles the science, the international and local politics, the fascinating demographics, and the devastating consequences of the disease, and suggests how we must respond.
About the Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always
balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the
series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.
168 pages, Paperback
First published February 25, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 12, 2009
I read this book for a class on AIDS and Public Policy. Quite fascinating. I had never thought about the effect that the epidemic had on policy and how if affected economy. The degree to which some countries are impacted is staggering. Because this disease affects mostly the working age population, there is a major rise in orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a rise in child-headed households. And in some countries there are more non-working people (elderly and children) than working. It is a little more than 100 pages, so it is quite brief, but very interesting.
December 12, 2014
The author started his book saying: “ Writing a short book proved more difficult than I would ever have believed”. But I think he managed eloquently, in spite of this difficulty, to sum up the most important data about AIDS within only 140 pages. Then, lightly linked this information with epidemiology through many statistical results that covered the whole world. Moreover, he added a solid, sensible facts about economical changes, political motives, and social effects which controlled the prevalence of this atrocious disease since its discovery in June 1981. Usually, most of scientific books characterized by a sharp, boring content, trying to diagnose the disease without even looking into the eyes of the patient. And of course I understand that from the scientific point of view. But, still trying to “humanify” one of the most potent killers in the human history like AIDS is one of the noblest humanitarian acts ever. And that's what Alan Whiteside had perfectly done here.
- Alan Whiteside had written this book in the time between 2006/2007. And he has considered AIDS then as a major killer of young adults. From all numbers he gave to justify this consideration, I stopped for a few seconds while reading these following lines:
“AIDS is new: in 2006, the 25th anniversary of its identification, there were close to 40 million people around the world living with HIV and over 20 million had died. Globally the number of infections had increased rapidly. This growth has slowed, but continues steadily.”
“The WHO estimates that in 2015 AIDS will still cause one in six deaths in Africa… The deaths are cumulative: by 2015, some 6 million South Africans may have died of AIDS – 13% of the population.”
- There is a strong relationship between AIDS and poverty. This fact doesn't contradict the presence of an exception such as Ghana, where the trend is the wealthier the person, the more likely they are to be HIV positive. The writer said:
“The burden of HIV/AIDS is not borne equally. It is the deprived and powerless who are most likely to be infected and affected. AIDS is primarily a disease of the poor, be they poor nations or poor people in rich nations. Geographically the worst epidemics are in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Southern Africa.”
“Cost is a factor. In affluent countries, where physicians tailor combinations of drugs, the total cost of treatment per patient is between US$ 850 and US$ 1,500 per month (this includes drugs, laboratory tests, and health care staff). In 2007, the cheapest combination of drugs in the developing world was US$ 94 per patient per year.”
- And it is not only the cost of drugs that creates problems of access:
“ Poor people may not be able to afford transport to clinics, and since some drugs must be taken with food, the effectiveness of treatment may be diminished if patients are malnourished. Poverty, therefore, affects adherence to and success of treatment.”
- The writer criticized how common people tend to limit the routes of transmission only through homosexuality, saying in different parts:
“There are different sub-epidemics around the world. Southern Africa has an epidemic transmitted primarily through heterosexual intercourse, with more women than men infected. In Asia total numbers are alarming, but small as a proportion of the population. The East European and central Asian epidemics have been principally fueled by Intravenous Drug Users IDUs and are growing. In rich countries the epidemic is contained, and mainly seen among marginal groups, although numbers are slowly rising. “
“Sometimes clearly defined groups can be identified, usually those on the margins of society and who face legal or social stigmatization: sex workers, drug users, and men who have sex with men. In China’s central provinces any cases are due to the sale of blood. Peasants sold their blood, the plasma was extracted, and what was left was pooled and transfused back, a practice that prevented anaemia in the donors, but ensured the rapid spread of HIV, hepatitis, malaria, and other blood-borne diseases. In other provinces of China there is primarily an IDU-driven epidemic.”
“In North Africa and the Middle East, although there is little evidence of HIV, there is concern about high risk factors. Sexual intercourse is the dominant form of transmission, but there are signs of spread among drug users. Stigma and discrimination are particularly marked here and mean the epidemic remains hidden.”
- And yes the book contains some scientific information about HIV itself. It remains less than other books that covered the same topic, yet to the point. The most part I liked here was when he talked about the mutation of the virus and its effect upon the disease and the treatment as well. He said:
“The switch from RNA to DNA and back to RNA is significant and makes combating HIV difficult. Each time it occurs, there is a possibility of errors and the virus mutating. This is made more likely because reverse transcriptase lacks the normal ‘proofreading’ that occurs with DNA replication. Once formed, the copies or virus particles break out of the cell, destroying it and infecting other cells”. “The mutation of the virus means various sub-types or clads of the virus have evolved”. When “The virus mutates, it becomes resistant to drugs. For an individual, this means the drug combination they take should be tailored to the variant of virus with which they are infected.” So,” The treatment becomes much more difficult and expensive for everyone.”
- HIV tests look for the presence of antibodies to the virus instead of detecting the virus itself: if a person has antibodies, they have the virus. But the problem is:
“However, there is a ‘window’ period when a person may be infected and infectious, but the virus is not yet detectable, meaning HIV tests are not completely reliable for new infections, and blood supply safety cannot be guaranteed.”
- No one needs to tell that there is no cure until now, but there is a therapy called antiretroviral therapies ART: “One benefit of ART is that it reduces the viral load, making a person on treatment much less infectious.”
Then he discussed the factors that caused the increased prevalence of AIDS in some areas more than others, like the early time of sexual debut for young women, or number of uncircumcised men. But I want to put here what he said about capitalism as a powerful factor:
“In Southern Africa, development of the mines and industry required a large workforce. The dominance of capitalism meant wages were tightly controlled. The colonial history and, in South Africa, subsequent apartheid legislation resulted in black labour being most exploited. Apartheid imposed strict controls on where black people could live and work and meant many South Africans were classified as migrants, effectively foreigners in their own country. Huge numbers of men travelled to work in the mines, factories, and on the farms. Foreign migrant miners were drawn primarily from Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Namibia, and in the 1970s, there were close to half a million foreigners employed on contracts in South Africa. In 1985 nearly two million black South Africans were classified as migrants. These people lived apart from their families, in hostel accommodation, and had to return home between contracts. The effects of this dislocation and disempowerment have been well documented. When people are placed in circumstances in which they cannot maintain stable relationships, life is risky and pleasures are few and necessarily cheap, then sexually transmitted diseases will be rampant.”
“Similar stories can be told of former communist countries. The collapse of communism was not good news for millions of citizens of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. The system had provided many benefits, citizens were assured of employment, education, housing, health care, and even holidays; basic needs, and more, were met.”
Then he added: “ These factors are crucial, and most important are gender relations and income equality. The central issue is how people treat and see one another. A society in which people respect the views and choices of others is one in which unsafe sex is less likely to occur.”
- Talking about the hazardous effects of AIDS on the population, he says:
“The potential effects of behaviour change are considerable. Condoms may be used to protect against disease, but also have an impact on fertility. An increased age of sexual debut will reduce the total fertility rate.”
“ In heterosexually driven epidemics more women will die than men at younger ages. Over the next 20 years, in many countries, men between the ages of 35 and 54 will outnumber women. This may motivate men to seek sexual relationships with younger and younger women, increasing HIV infection rates, and leading to a vicious cycle of transmission operating for generations.”
“There are limits to what demography shows us. Children orphaned by AIDS have different experiences and bear additional burdens to those orphaned by other causes. The death of a parent is preceded by prolonged illness. If one parent is infected, there is a probability that the other parent is infected and both will die: double orphans are more disadvantaged than single orphans. When orphans are taken in by grandparents (usually grandmothers), they face the prospect of losing elderly caregivers too, effectively a repeat orphaning. Research gives us numbers, but the psychological impact is still to be assessed.”
- And even AIDS has politicized. The author says:
“Initially, the data were highly political. No country wanted to be identified with the epidemic. The most blatant example of cooking the figures was in the late 1980s. Zimbabwe had officially notified the WHO that it had several hundred cases of AIDS. When South Africa first reported, it notified the WHO of 120 cases”
- For more Understanding of South African denial, he gave many reasons. These were some of them:
“The origin of AIDS is seen by some as stigmatizing. A poor knowledge of the facts can lead to such incorrect conclusions as ‘HIV comes from monkeys and HIV is sexually transmitted: therefore Africans must have had sex with monkeys’.”
“AIDS was used by the opposition to attack the government, helped by scandals: a play costing millions, but achieving little; a phony cure; the Presidential Panel to investigate the link between HIV and AIDS; and the emphasis on nutrition as opposed to medicines.”
- So when exactly South Africa’s government took a positive steps towards a real recognition of AIDS. The answer was when they discovered the deaths of million and half of the registered voters!. The writer says:
“Death is the measurable event, but illness is playing an increasing role. Sick people may not register or get to polling stations, and carers face similar problems. If people are increasingly ill or engaged in caring, levels of political engagement may decrease – citizens simply do not have the time, energy, or inclination to be involved. It is believed that participation in democracy is a ‘good thing’, but lower turnouts de-legitimize the process. AIDS could make a difference if it tips power balances, for instance, where one ethnic or religious group has a higher prevalence than another, and the voting is on ethnic or religious lines, as may occur, for example, in countries with both Muslim and non-Muslim populations such as Nigeria and some East African states.”
- Finally, for intervention to work, the early, realistic recognition of the disease is crucial. In addition to the degree of understanding between the government of each country and its people. Take this as a good example:
“IDUs who share injecting equipment were identified early as being at risk. The approaches ranged from cracking down on drugs and users, which tended to drive people underground, to making an illegal activity safer. This latter option included campaigns to ensure users, at least, cleaned and sterilized their equipment (simple bleach worked); and at best, programs incorporated needle exchanges, where old used needles were exchanged for new ones. The first needle exchange was introduced in February 1986 in the Scottish city of Dundee. Such successful interventions brought the IDU epidemic under control in Britain and much of Europe.”
- Alan Whiteside had written this book in the time between 2006/2007. And he has considered AIDS then as a major killer of young adults. From all numbers he gave to justify this consideration, I stopped for a few seconds while reading these following lines:
“AIDS is new: in 2006, the 25th anniversary of its identification, there were close to 40 million people around the world living with HIV and over 20 million had died. Globally the number of infections had increased rapidly. This growth has slowed, but continues steadily.”
“The WHO estimates that in 2015 AIDS will still cause one in six deaths in Africa… The deaths are cumulative: by 2015, some 6 million South Africans may have died of AIDS – 13% of the population.”
- There is a strong relationship between AIDS and poverty. This fact doesn't contradict the presence of an exception such as Ghana, where the trend is the wealthier the person, the more likely they are to be HIV positive. The writer said:
“The burden of HIV/AIDS is not borne equally. It is the deprived and powerless who are most likely to be infected and affected. AIDS is primarily a disease of the poor, be they poor nations or poor people in rich nations. Geographically the worst epidemics are in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Southern Africa.”
“Cost is a factor. In affluent countries, where physicians tailor combinations of drugs, the total cost of treatment per patient is between US$ 850 and US$ 1,500 per month (this includes drugs, laboratory tests, and health care staff). In 2007, the cheapest combination of drugs in the developing world was US$ 94 per patient per year.”
- And it is not only the cost of drugs that creates problems of access:
“ Poor people may not be able to afford transport to clinics, and since some drugs must be taken with food, the effectiveness of treatment may be diminished if patients are malnourished. Poverty, therefore, affects adherence to and success of treatment.”
- The writer criticized how common people tend to limit the routes of transmission only through homosexuality, saying in different parts:
“There are different sub-epidemics around the world. Southern Africa has an epidemic transmitted primarily through heterosexual intercourse, with more women than men infected. In Asia total numbers are alarming, but small as a proportion of the population. The East European and central Asian epidemics have been principally fueled by Intravenous Drug Users IDUs and are growing. In rich countries the epidemic is contained, and mainly seen among marginal groups, although numbers are slowly rising. “
“Sometimes clearly defined groups can be identified, usually those on the margins of society and who face legal or social stigmatization: sex workers, drug users, and men who have sex with men. In China’s central provinces any cases are due to the sale of blood. Peasants sold their blood, the plasma was extracted, and what was left was pooled and transfused back, a practice that prevented anaemia in the donors, but ensured the rapid spread of HIV, hepatitis, malaria, and other blood-borne diseases. In other provinces of China there is primarily an IDU-driven epidemic.”
“In North Africa and the Middle East, although there is little evidence of HIV, there is concern about high risk factors. Sexual intercourse is the dominant form of transmission, but there are signs of spread among drug users. Stigma and discrimination are particularly marked here and mean the epidemic remains hidden.”
- And yes the book contains some scientific information about HIV itself. It remains less than other books that covered the same topic, yet to the point. The most part I liked here was when he talked about the mutation of the virus and its effect upon the disease and the treatment as well. He said:
“The switch from RNA to DNA and back to RNA is significant and makes combating HIV difficult. Each time it occurs, there is a possibility of errors and the virus mutating. This is made more likely because reverse transcriptase lacks the normal ‘proofreading’ that occurs with DNA replication. Once formed, the copies or virus particles break out of the cell, destroying it and infecting other cells”. “The mutation of the virus means various sub-types or clads of the virus have evolved”. When “The virus mutates, it becomes resistant to drugs. For an individual, this means the drug combination they take should be tailored to the variant of virus with which they are infected.” So,” The treatment becomes much more difficult and expensive for everyone.”
- HIV tests look for the presence of antibodies to the virus instead of detecting the virus itself: if a person has antibodies, they have the virus. But the problem is:
“However, there is a ‘window’ period when a person may be infected and infectious, but the virus is not yet detectable, meaning HIV tests are not completely reliable for new infections, and blood supply safety cannot be guaranteed.”
- No one needs to tell that there is no cure until now, but there is a therapy called antiretroviral therapies ART: “One benefit of ART is that it reduces the viral load, making a person on treatment much less infectious.”
Then he discussed the factors that caused the increased prevalence of AIDS in some areas more than others, like the early time of sexual debut for young women, or number of uncircumcised men. But I want to put here what he said about capitalism as a powerful factor:
“In Southern Africa, development of the mines and industry required a large workforce. The dominance of capitalism meant wages were tightly controlled. The colonial history and, in South Africa, subsequent apartheid legislation resulted in black labour being most exploited. Apartheid imposed strict controls on where black people could live and work and meant many South Africans were classified as migrants, effectively foreigners in their own country. Huge numbers of men travelled to work in the mines, factories, and on the farms. Foreign migrant miners were drawn primarily from Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Namibia, and in the 1970s, there were close to half a million foreigners employed on contracts in South Africa. In 1985 nearly two million black South Africans were classified as migrants. These people lived apart from their families, in hostel accommodation, and had to return home between contracts. The effects of this dislocation and disempowerment have been well documented. When people are placed in circumstances in which they cannot maintain stable relationships, life is risky and pleasures are few and necessarily cheap, then sexually transmitted diseases will be rampant.”
“Similar stories can be told of former communist countries. The collapse of communism was not good news for millions of citizens of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. The system had provided many benefits, citizens were assured of employment, education, housing, health care, and even holidays; basic needs, and more, were met.”
Then he added: “ These factors are crucial, and most important are gender relations and income equality. The central issue is how people treat and see one another. A society in which people respect the views and choices of others is one in which unsafe sex is less likely to occur.”
- Talking about the hazardous effects of AIDS on the population, he says:
“The potential effects of behaviour change are considerable. Condoms may be used to protect against disease, but also have an impact on fertility. An increased age of sexual debut will reduce the total fertility rate.”
“ In heterosexually driven epidemics more women will die than men at younger ages. Over the next 20 years, in many countries, men between the ages of 35 and 54 will outnumber women. This may motivate men to seek sexual relationships with younger and younger women, increasing HIV infection rates, and leading to a vicious cycle of transmission operating for generations.”
“There are limits to what demography shows us. Children orphaned by AIDS have different experiences and bear additional burdens to those orphaned by other causes. The death of a parent is preceded by prolonged illness. If one parent is infected, there is a probability that the other parent is infected and both will die: double orphans are more disadvantaged than single orphans. When orphans are taken in by grandparents (usually grandmothers), they face the prospect of losing elderly caregivers too, effectively a repeat orphaning. Research gives us numbers, but the psychological impact is still to be assessed.”
- And even AIDS has politicized. The author says:
“Initially, the data were highly political. No country wanted to be identified with the epidemic. The most blatant example of cooking the figures was in the late 1980s. Zimbabwe had officially notified the WHO that it had several hundred cases of AIDS. When South Africa first reported, it notified the WHO of 120 cases”
- For more Understanding of South African denial, he gave many reasons. These were some of them:
“The origin of AIDS is seen by some as stigmatizing. A poor knowledge of the facts can lead to such incorrect conclusions as ‘HIV comes from monkeys and HIV is sexually transmitted: therefore Africans must have had sex with monkeys’.”
“AIDS was used by the opposition to attack the government, helped by scandals: a play costing millions, but achieving little; a phony cure; the Presidential Panel to investigate the link between HIV and AIDS; and the emphasis on nutrition as opposed to medicines.”
- So when exactly South Africa’s government took a positive steps towards a real recognition of AIDS. The answer was when they discovered the deaths of million and half of the registered voters!. The writer says:
“Death is the measurable event, but illness is playing an increasing role. Sick people may not register or get to polling stations, and carers face similar problems. If people are increasingly ill or engaged in caring, levels of political engagement may decrease – citizens simply do not have the time, energy, or inclination to be involved. It is believed that participation in democracy is a ‘good thing’, but lower turnouts de-legitimize the process. AIDS could make a difference if it tips power balances, for instance, where one ethnic or religious group has a higher prevalence than another, and the voting is on ethnic or religious lines, as may occur, for example, in countries with both Muslim and non-Muslim populations such as Nigeria and some East African states.”
- Finally, for intervention to work, the early, realistic recognition of the disease is crucial. In addition to the degree of understanding between the government of each country and its people. Take this as a good example:
“IDUs who share injecting equipment were identified early as being at risk. The approaches ranged from cracking down on drugs and users, which tended to drive people underground, to making an illegal activity safer. This latter option included campaigns to ensure users, at least, cleaned and sterilized their equipment (simple bleach worked); and at best, programs incorporated needle exchanges, where old used needles were exchanged for new ones. The first needle exchange was introduced in February 1986 in the Scottish city of Dundee. Such successful interventions brought the IDU epidemic under control in Britain and much of Europe.”
July 12, 2018
This book is helpful if the reader wants to understand the global impact of aids, especially upon Africa and Latin America. However, this book does not discuss what it is like to have aids on a more individual level. The focus of this book is understanding how the aids epidemic has affected populations, economics, politics, and communities as a whole.
October 23, 2023
Really insightful. Read it for my public health course this term. A lot of interesting facts and information that I was really unaware of prior to reading.
September 7, 2009
As with most of the books in this series, it's a very good introduction to the subject at hand. Whiteside clearly puts forward the great knowledge he has about HIV/AIDS and one come's away with a more detailed picture of this great epidemic.
March 21, 2021
HIV, which can lead to AIDS, continues to present a pandemic situation wherever humans live. It differentially affects marginalized communities and tends to have an associated social stigma. It has hurt people in Africa particularly hard, and Whiteside, a professor in South Africa and a global leader in AIDS health discussions, is well-poised to witness the global effects. In this short and well-written work, he extracts the biomedical, social, political, and economic implications of this disease.
HIV likely first entered a human through infected ape meat in the early part of the twentieth century. AIDS first came to the attention of the global community, particularly the West, in the early 1980s. Its unrelenting and unmitigated spread struck much fear. In the mid-1980s, the cause, a virus, was isolated. Effective medications made an appearance in the 1990s. Vaccination research efforts have failed to produce an effective vaccine. (Such efforts continue.) The distribution of medications to needful communities – especially in poor Africa – has become a prime geopolitical issue.
This basic story presents a lot of topics to unpack, and Whiteside does so from the perspective of Africa (central to this disease’s story, ranging from origin to prime impact). My main criticism of this work, which summarizes a lot of helpful information, is that it was written in 2008 and thus is dated. Even during a coronavirus pandemic (as is the case at the time of this writing), HIV/AIDS continues to pose peculiar and complex challenges, and work continues globally to address its difficulties. I wonder what beneficial information this work would present were it updated for the last 13 years.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has exposed many truths about the global healthcare system. It has exposed inequities in the way that information is collected and that care and information are disbursed. It has shown the limits of capitalist models of healthcare innovations, where rich companies develop for rich patients while this disease disproportionately affects poor and marginalized patients, especially in poor countries. Stigma about contracting the disease is amplified by intrigue about sexual practices. Oversimplified “solutions,” such as sexual abstinence, often prevail in popular discussions. In less than 150 pages, Whitehead elaborates and expounds on all these topics, with one eye on the past and another on the future.
As is common in Oxford University Press’s “Very Short Introduction” series, this work is most suited for social leaders – whether from government, healthcare, or private business – who need a quick tutorial for basic issues. It also has references for further reading in case of a need for deeper analysis. Concise and tightly edited language use amplifies the effect of the words. Again, my only real criticism is that this work is now dated. One can only hope that continued global labor about this issue will lead to eventual rewards.
Note: A second edition of this work was published in 2017.
HIV likely first entered a human through infected ape meat in the early part of the twentieth century. AIDS first came to the attention of the global community, particularly the West, in the early 1980s. Its unrelenting and unmitigated spread struck much fear. In the mid-1980s, the cause, a virus, was isolated. Effective medications made an appearance in the 1990s. Vaccination research efforts have failed to produce an effective vaccine. (Such efforts continue.) The distribution of medications to needful communities – especially in poor Africa – has become a prime geopolitical issue.
This basic story presents a lot of topics to unpack, and Whiteside does so from the perspective of Africa (central to this disease’s story, ranging from origin to prime impact). My main criticism of this work, which summarizes a lot of helpful information, is that it was written in 2008 and thus is dated. Even during a coronavirus pandemic (as is the case at the time of this writing), HIV/AIDS continues to pose peculiar and complex challenges, and work continues globally to address its difficulties. I wonder what beneficial information this work would present were it updated for the last 13 years.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has exposed many truths about the global healthcare system. It has exposed inequities in the way that information is collected and that care and information are disbursed. It has shown the limits of capitalist models of healthcare innovations, where rich companies develop for rich patients while this disease disproportionately affects poor and marginalized patients, especially in poor countries. Stigma about contracting the disease is amplified by intrigue about sexual practices. Oversimplified “solutions,” such as sexual abstinence, often prevail in popular discussions. In less than 150 pages, Whitehead elaborates and expounds on all these topics, with one eye on the past and another on the future.
As is common in Oxford University Press’s “Very Short Introduction” series, this work is most suited for social leaders – whether from government, healthcare, or private business – who need a quick tutorial for basic issues. It also has references for further reading in case of a need for deeper analysis. Concise and tightly edited language use amplifies the effect of the words. Again, my only real criticism is that this work is now dated. One can only hope that continued global labor about this issue will lead to eventual rewards.
Note: A second edition of this work was published in 2017.
July 19, 2022
Whiteside’s A Very Short Introduction to HIV/AIDS disappointed me somewhat as I thought the focus of this volume would center more on the history of the epidemic in the United States. This volume does detail how the HIV/AIDS spreads in combination with both the factors that lead to its spread and the impacts HIV/AIDS have communities, but the scope of thought here seems narrower than what I have come to expect with the A Very Short Introduction series.
February 21, 2022
Quick read.
Nice overall information about HIV/AIDS (not only the illness itself but also the poitical, social and cultural impact of this illness in general.)
I will surely continue this series since I find these kind of "personal growth/science" (I wouldn't consider this as personal growth book in any way tho) very important for everyone who likes to learn.
Nice overall information about HIV/AIDS (not only the illness itself but also the poitical, social and cultural impact of this illness in general.)
I will surely continue this series since I find these kind of "personal growth/science" (I wouldn't consider this as personal growth book in any way tho) very important for everyone who likes to learn.
June 25, 2021
Outdated but insightful as a snapshot to how humanity dealt with an unknown pandemic before 2020. Important read as it acknowledges pandemics as an interdisciplinary issue, not merely one of public health.
June 4, 2020
It gives you a good overview, a good understanding of HIV and AIDS, and also some insides on how this virus impacted and still impacts the world.
November 11, 2021
It’s a little dated. But it provides a good overview of the pathology, demographics, and globalization of AIDS.
Read
September 2, 2024der econ teil war mad spannend, sonst teilweise sehr informativ teilweise sehr eh
June 24, 2014
This book is packed with information yet readily digested. Much of the text space is dedicated to under studied or under discussed tolls that HIV/AIDS has on family units, care giving, transfer of skill and knowledge, efficiency of work provided by the sick and costs of stigmatization. Sprinkled throughout the book are suggestions that technical solutions (such as medication, vaccines, etc..) are not the sole method, nor necessarily the best, for preventing future infections and obtaining better quality of life for those infected.
The book stresses realistic expectations for social education programs (ones that focus less on abstinence and more on long term stable relationships), the need for greater gender equality (with the aim of reducing rape, increasing power to require condom usage, and other forms of empowerment), and the need to destigmatize political discussions regarding sex and its related taboos.
The book stresses realistic expectations for social education programs (ones that focus less on abstinence and more on long term stable relationships), the need for greater gender equality (with the aim of reducing rape, increasing power to require condom usage, and other forms of empowerment), and the need to destigmatize political discussions regarding sex and its related taboos.
August 17, 2011
This does a pretty good job at what seems to be the authors main aim: demonstrating that there's more to HIV/AIDS than just the infection and medical treatments for it. But in the preface the author describes his difficulty in writing a short book, and I think he has a point: the whole thing reads a bit like a giant bullet-point list, and yet at the same time also manages to be quite repetitive. In my opinion more could have been done with the space, and at the same time the narrative could've flowed more smoothly. But, it's a reasonable introduction.
October 29, 2021
A pretty interesting book. However, in my opinion, I found in it some lacks. I hoped in a more detailed description of HIV/AIDS also in a medical way but it was only focalized in numbers and new cases (specially africans). It also didn't cover the social aspects of the epidemy.
June 30, 2013
A compelling look at an important topic. Recommended for anyone interested in understanding HIV/AIDS issues better.
November 8, 2019
كتاب رائع جدا عن فيروس الإيدز شامل وكامل به احصائيات ومعلومات
April 1, 2017
Preliminary Review - This must be the most frustrating read I've had in year. Up until page 84 it was shaping up to be one of the best VSIs I'd read so far. A really comprehensive and wide ranging look at the multiple dimensions of the AIDs epidemic. Then there are twenty pages missing from my copy... horrific. This will unsettle me for the rest of the day.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews