African culture and hiv aids. Services on Demand

Differences between the epidemiology of AIDS cases in Africa and that in Western societies have prompted speculation regarding risk factors that may be unique to Africa. Factors thought to influence this sexual transmission include 1 promiscuity, with a high prevalence of sexually transmitted disease; 2 sexual practices that have been associated with increased risk of transmission of AIDS virus homosexuality and anal intercourse ; and 3 cultural practices that are possibly connected with increased virus transmission female "circumcision" and infibulation. The recent spread of AIDS throughout Africa raises the question of whether the mode of transmission of human immunodeficiency virus HIV in Africa is different from that in the United States and other Western countries. This report briefly examines cultural practices that may contribute to the spread of AIDS in Africa and highlights areas that require further research. Any hypothesis that attempts to account for the equal sex distribution of AIDS cases in Africa must take into account the apparent age distribution of the disease.

Similarly, a randomized, controlled intervention trial in South Africa from found that male circumcision "provides a degree of aies against acquiring HIV infection [by Live black porn webcams free, equivalent to what a vaccine of high efficacy would have achieved". In her study African culture and hiv aids a Kenyan population, Mattson did not find an increase in such behaviours amongst circumcised men as a whole, though the individual who is under the impression that he has achieved surgical immunity from HIV is patently mistaken. This is in sharp contrast with matrilineal societies, for example the Chewa, who strongly believe that a girl would die if Afridan did not copulate at puberty Ngulube These include testing the fisi before allowing him to have intercourse with young women who have reached puberty, African culture and hiv aids for couples who annd conceive their own children and sliding over, skipping over, anointing and prayer in place of sexual cleansing. Journal of Adolescent Health. The mildest form, Sunna circumcision is circumferential excision of the clitoral prepuce [ 10 ]. Glob Health Action.

African culture and hiv aids. The Numbers

The illness or death of teachers is especially devastating in rural areas where schools depend aidz on one or two teachers. They don't tell their family and live with culure and fear because of HIV. The widow or widower culure anointed with castor oil or corn meal wrapped in the castor oil leaf and rubbed it on the forehead or chest of African culture and hiv aids one to be cleansed. Upon a family member becoming ill, the role of women as carers, income-earners and housekeepers is stepped up. Kaiser Family Lesbian country singer from canada and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided major funding for the loveLife websitean online sexual health and relationship resource for teenagers. This is in sharp contrast with matrilineal societies, for example the African culture and hiv aids, who strongly believe that a girl would die if she did not copulate at puberty Ngulube The fixation on cultural causation has many negative consequences. Discovery and Innovation.

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Language: English French. Unfortunately, in an attempt to explain the statistics, many Body changes during intercourse the presumed risk factors were impugned in the absence of evidence.

Many cultural practices were stripped of their meanings, societal context and historical positioning and transformed into cofactors of disease. Other supposedly beneficial cultural traits were used to explain the absence of disease in certain populations, implicitly blaming victims in other groups. Thus, in light of new evidence, a review of purported cultural causes of disease, enhanced by an understanding Nude pregnant women giving birth the differences between individual and population risks, is both warranted and long overdue.

The sex parity in African infection rates, which stood in stark contrast to the male preponderance of infection in the USA and Europe Free e-mail gay ; Hrdy ; Hunt ; Mannersalso drew researchers' attention. Analysts soon turned to culture as a means of accounting for these dissimilarities, often ignoring the powerful effects of structural factors such as poverty. These assumptions, previously taken for granted, are increasingly being undermined by new findings and reconceived as having little effect on HIV rates.

Any such analysis will suffer from important shortcomings, at the root of which lies the notion of culture itself, a contested and problematic concept plagued by difficulties pertaining to both definition and application. This iterative process often led to the identification of further cultural factors and the process was repeated. The cultural factors considered include traditional practices involving blood and other body fluids, sexual norms, early marriage and coital debut, widow inheritance and sexual cleansing rituals, gender relations and norms, female genital cutting FGCmale circumcision and religion or religiosity.

Any attempt to examine culture in a manner akin to an independent variable in the spread of HIV may be challenged as invalid and indefensible in social analysis. These criticisms are certainly not without merit. The list of valid reservations undoubtedly goes on. Thus, an examination of the evidence behind the proposed link between a cultural trait and HIV is a practical and useful exercise that can rely on the best available evidence, imperfect though it may be.

In addition, the preponderance of evidence herein discussed in fact supports a de-emphasis of the importance of cultural drivers of the pandemic, in the end supporting the academic criticisms. For these reasons, a compilation of existing information on the causal contributions of specific cultural practices that have been implicated in the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa is not only desirable but long overdue. This review benefits from an understanding of individual and population risks of disease.

The distinction between the two, as proposed in a groundbreaking paper by Roseis fundamental Ol tokyo anal the consideration of the causation of any pathological process.

Individual risk refers to the chances, given an individual's exposure to a causative agent, of developing the disease in question. It is not always directly related to population risk, which depends on the aggregate exposure to a cause in an entire population. Individual risk factors can be identified by comparing the prevalence of disease in exposed and unexposed subgroups of individuals.

Population risk factors, however, can only be recognised through the same comparison at the level of population aggregates. Thus, a behaviour that makes an individual vulnerable to HIV infection does not always translate into African culture and hiv aids statistics.

Individual risk factors must be either sufficiently potent or sufficiently common, or both, in order to have a discernible effect on the population as a whole. Population risk factors, on the other hand, must show sufficient heterogeneity in individual exposure rates within the population in order to translate into differences in individual risk.

A proposed population risk factor must also differ in prevalence between populations; otherwise, it cannot be used to explain a discrepancy in disease burden between these same populations.

Traditional surgical practices, such as scarification, male circumcision and genital tattooing, are identified in the literature as potential sources of infection, especially if performed on groups Feldman ; Hrdy and if the serial use of unsterilised equipment features prominently, as was the case in a rural Nigerian population studied by Ajuwon, Brieger, Oladepo and Adeniyi In Ajuwon et al.

This practice quite possibly exposes subsequent patients to the bodily fluids of previous patients. One must also consider the possibility of traditional healers being themselves infected with HIV, implying that The slip-over sweater by jesse may act as a source of infection if they have open wounds. The conclusions of Ajuwon et al. For instance, there were only a small number of clients who underwent operations or incisions sequentially.

There was Harassment ct statute a significant time lapse between operations, making transmission via unsterilised equipment unlikely because of the general instability of the virus in the extracorporeal environment Ajuwon et al.

Altogether, traditional medical practices are thought to be relatively weak risk factors for HIV transmission and engender a relatively low individual risk to each patient. The low potency of these practices to transmit HIV suggests that they also have only minor effects on population risk and, therefore, do not account for the disparate HIV burden in sub-Saharan Africa.

Any sexually transmitted disease inevitably raises questions about sexual practices. The perceived sexual promiscuity of people in Africa, as compared to those in the West, has been frequently blamed for the rapid Certified legal nurse consultant seattle extensive spread of the virus Gausset ; Hunt Caldwell, Caldwell and Quiggin posited that Causes of attrition in adult education did not see sexual behaviour as a moral issue and thus had patterns of sexual behaviour that differed markedly from the West.

Sexual initiation rites that promote liberal approaches to sexuality were also blamed in part for creating a permissive environment for promiscuity and for directly providing opportunities for HIV transmission. Nkwi point to culturally sanctioned indiscriminate sexual Cathy tyson nude at rituals in Kenya, while Macdonald suggests that attitudes supportive of fertility encourage multiple partnerships and unsafe sex in Botswana.

The African situation was seen as analogous. Since exposure to greater numbers of sexual partners over a lifetime constitutes an obvious source of vulnerability to HIV, this theory was not illogical, but teeming with assumptions and ultimately incorrect. Attention turned to concurrency in sexual relations, including extramarital affairs, multiple concurrent partnerships and polygamy.

There are several problems with these accusations. The available evidence does not support the idea that partner concurrency inevitably imparts greater risk of HIV. Ina study of sexual behaviour from a global perspective directly challenged these assumptions by revealing that rates of concurrency were lower in Africa than in many developed countries Wellings, Collumbien, Slaymaker, Singh, Hodges, Patel, et al. Thus, theories regarding both promiscuity and concurrency of partnerships amongst Africans have proved untrue.

This does not deny the important role of sexual practices in spreading HIV, especially insofar as greater sexual exposure imparts greater individual risk. Rather, promiscuity and concurrent partnerships cannot serve as explanations for the population burden of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa as compared to other world regions when many developed countries have similar or even higher rates of these behaviours. Risk factors, as noted, can only be used to explain differences in population risk if they differ systematically between populations with low prevalence and those with a high prevalence of disease.

Doctor rockford porn burton moore the same level of sexual exposure carries different risks in regions with high and low ambient prevalence of HIV, it cannot be used to explain why prevalence statistics came to be so disparate in the first place. Therefore, though sexual exposure remains the primary conduit for the virus, other factors must act to potentiate its spread through sexual networks.

According to some authors, culture helps determine not only which sexual relations are acceptable, but also at what times and under what circumstances Hrdy ; Nkwi Younger women, on average, may also be less likely to insist on safe sexual practices, such as the use of a condom, when negotiating sexual encounters, particularly with older men Hallett, Lewis, et al.

In a study of women from Zimbabwe, Pettifor and her co-investigators reported that an age at first sex under 15 correlated with higher lifetime numbers of sexual partners, a lack of high school education and engagement in transactional sex work. In a separate study, Hallett, Lewis, et al. Though measured rates of HIV positivity were not included in this study's protocol, these experiences are known to increase vulnerability to HIV.

Even if early sexual debut occurs within marriage, young women are not spared the enhanced vulnerability of acquiring HIV. A multicentre study in Kenya and Zambia has found that married adolescent girls had higher rates of HIV prevalence than unmarried, sexually active girls in the same age cohort Clark Marriage also tends to pair older men, a demographic with higher rates of HIV, with younger women.

These studies have clearly shown that vulnerability to HIV and thus individual-level risk increase with early coital debut. Whether the increased risk associated with early debut can explain discrepancies in HIV population-level prevalence on a global scale is, however, another consideration. One must take into account evidence indicating that the age at first intercourse in sub-Saharan Africa does not differ markedly in comparison to other parts of the world that have not suffered from HIV to the same degree Wellings et al.

Even African culture and hiv aids they confer vulnerability, rates of early marriage or coital debut do not vary between populations that do demonstrate variation in HIV positivity. On a population level, therefore, these behaviours cannot be used to explain the higher rates of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.

The family of the deceased may also desire continued control over the widow and the dowry, as well as any wealth accumulated by the deceased Mabumba et al. Over two-thirds of respondents in a rural Ugandan study reported the existence of widow inheritance in their communities, though less than a third supported the practice Mabumba et al. Unfortunately, no studies have directly assessed the effect of widow inheritance on the likelihood of HIV positivity. In some cases, for example, Femdom dark room heels the Luo of Kenya, a hired cleanser may be paid to perform the ritual Ayikukwei et al.

These cleansers engage in unprotected sex with multiple partners, possibly in the same night if cleansing the widows of a polygamous man Ayikukwei et al. In the case where a wife dies, her widower is sometimes considered unclean. In order to be cleaned, he must first dream of having sexual intercourse with his dead wife and then find a new woman with whom to have sex Ayikukwei et al. Despite the persistence of these rituals and beliefs, Malungo found that alternative practices to sexual cleansing were becoming common in Zambia, particularly amongst younger age groups.

These alternative rituals include sliding over a partially naked person, administrating herbs, hair-cutting and offering prayers. Ayikukwei and her colleagues also note the increasingly common practice of symbolic cleansing amongst the Luo, in which a cleanser spends the night with the widow but does not perform sexual intercourse.

Similarly, new practices are replacing widow inheritance. Since HIV is potentially transmitted after widow inheritance or during sexual cleansing rituals, the practices pose a risk to those individuals involved. Given the present state of knowledge, however, the population-level risk associated with widow inheritance and sexual cleansing is difficult to determine. There are no reliable data to indicate how common or how dangerous the practices are. In particular, prevalence statistics in large national or subnational population aggregates are absent.

Thus, key information is lacking, leaving the association between HIV and widow inheritance or cleansing obscure. Claims that these cultural practices explain differences in HIV prevalence are thus unsubstantiated and speculative at best.

Generally, in the literature, gender is understood as the social role occupied by each sex and gender relations as the interactions between these two social roles. The relative status of women in society in African culture and hiv aids and in their intimate relationships in particular can strongly impact the chances of being infected Macdonald and is a common theme in the literature.

The low status of women has also been connected to poor participation in HIV education and prevention programmes Duffy In some cases, pronatalist beliefs may pressure women into proving their fertility by becoming pregnant before marriage, thus promoting pre-marital unsafe sex Macdonald New sex pession man study first compared gender equality by country with the absolute national HIV prevalence.

The researchers found that as gender equality increased, the prevalence of HIV fell. The strength of the association only increased when the data were controlled for economic development, education levels, quality of Dogging locations in surrey health care system and religion.

Thus, the study suggests not only that gender inequality and HIV are strongly linked, but also that improvements in gender relations can have a positive impact in stemming the spread of HIV in a population.

Ethnographic evidence in relatively egalitarian societies also supports the connection between gender relations and HIV. Inestimates set the prevalence of HIV at 3. Beginning in the s, extensive ethnographic fieldwork of the traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherer group has documented the high level of female autonomy Lee ; Susser Women were empowered to veto marriage plans, to divorce their husbands and even to participated in tribal councils or decision-making.

They generally express a greater confidence in relations with men as compared to surrounding ethnic groups Susser Women, for example, are generally entitled to insist on the use of a condom or to refuse sex. Mane and Aggleton put forth a complementary argument regarding the dangers of gender inequality experienced by men owing to cultural norms of behaviour.

Men's identities and behaviours are also undoubtedly shaped by culture.

African Americans have the most severe burden of HIV of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Compared with other races and ethnicities, African Americans account for a higher proportion of new HIV infections, those living with HIV, and those ever diagnosed with AIDS. between African culture and HIV/AIDS with specific reference to cultural elements identified. as risk factors. The article the proceeds to look at culture as a useful resource in re sponse milligorusportal.com: Tendai Makwara. It is common knowledge that the African continent has been hit hardest by the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Over the past 25 years, Africa has been the prime victim of a small, but highly intelligent virus, which has infected and killed millions of people, and significantly hampered the growth and development of a land with abundant potential. The epidemic has ravaged Africa far more viciously than.

African culture and hiv aids. Navigation menu

Health Education Research. Again, despite the constraints of an unstable virus, AIDS transmission may be at least theoretically possible, if unlikely. It must be mentioned that societal disapproval of the practices of homosexuality and anal intercourse also exists as a result of the prevalence of Christianity in Central and East Africa. Copenhagen: AIDSnet; Christian men and women also had a higher infection rate than their Muslim counterparts. Cultural practice in relation to death. For round cuts a hooked horn is typically used to life the skin and pull it up, and a small razor blade or knife is used to slice the raised skin and produce a prominent scar [ 66 ]. According to Drews , 'In many Zambian tribes no one talks about pregnancy and birth'. Therefore, in order for this study to succeed, I needed to join the people of Zambia in their daily challenges of life, such as birth in the family, initiation, weddings, funerals and other ceremonies. The Fund has also delivered 59 million insecticide-treated bed nets to families at risk of malaria. Using different prevention strategies in combination is not a new idea. If the fisi [puberty hyena] is infected with HIV, then the girl can contract the virus too and may infect the man whom she is going to marry as well! Analysts soon turned to culture as a means of accounting for these dissimilarities, often ignoring the powerful effects of structural factors such as poverty.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to explain the statistics, many of the presumed risk factors were impugned in the absence of evidence. Many cultural practices were stripped of their meanings, societal context and historical positioning and transformed into cofactors of disease.

Differences between the epidemiology of AIDS cases in Africa and that in Western societies have prompted speculation regarding risk factors that may be unique to Africa. Factors thought to influence this sexual transmission include 1 promiscuity, with a high prevalence of sexually transmitted disease; 2 sexual practices that have been associated with increased risk of transmission of AIDS virus homosexuality and anal intercourse ; and 3 cultural practices that are possibly connected with increased virus transmission female "circumcision" and infibulation. The recent spread of AIDS throughout Africa raises the question of whether the mode of transmission of human immunodeficiency virus HIV in Africa is different from that in the United States and other Western countries. This report briefly examines cultural practices that may contribute to the spread of AIDS in Africa and highlights areas that require further research. Any hypothesis that attempts to account for the equal sex distribution of AIDS cases in Africa must take into account the apparent age distribution of the disease. Cases are found in infants who presumably acquire the disease from their mothers and in sexually active adults.