Origins of AIDS in Africa
Recent theories have linked the earliest known cases of AIDS to west Africa. The predominant feature of this first period was silence. Hypotheses include linking the disease to the preparation for consumption of bushmeat in Cameroon, or sexual contact with monkeys, with this last hypothesis being met with skepticism, as this is an extremely uncommon practice in African countries. Current hypotheses also include colonial medical practices of mid-20th-century which, once the virus made the jump from chimpanzees or other apes to humans, may have helped HIV become established in human populations around 1930. It is highly probable that this is where the disease originated since early cases of it have been traced back to colonial Africa in the rubber plantations but no scientific evidence has been found.
Read more about this topic: HIV/AIDS In Africa
Famous quotes containing the words origins of, origins, aids and/or africa:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I thought that when they said Atlantic Charter, that meant me and everybody in Africa and Asia and everywhere. But it seems like the Atlantic is an ocean that does not touch anywhere but North America and Europe.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)