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HIV/AIDS in the Context of South Africa’s Epidemic History

In: AIDS and South Africa: the Social Expression of a Pandemic

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  • Howard Phillips

Abstract

In the reams of writing on AIDS in South Africa, both scholarly and popular, there runs a strong sense that this is an unspeakable epidemic, without precedent in the country’s history. It ‘defies description’, remarked a leading AIDS scholar (Crewe, 2000, p. 23), while the South African chair of the AIDS 2000 Conference in Durban said he ‘could find no parallel in history for AIDS’ — it was an epidemic ‘the likes of which we have never seen’ (Coovadia, 2001). South Africa’s official HIV/AIDS/STD Strategic Plan 2000–5 described it as ‘an incomprehensible calamity’ (Department of Health, 2000). Not surprisingly, at a popular level this perception has been even more marked. In 2000, Time International (p. 31) referred to AIDS in South Africa as being ‘worse than a disaster’ and of rural Kwazulu-Natal as being ‘the cutting edge of a continental apocalypse’. More recently Time (2001, p. 47) followed up these dire descriptions of an entirely unparalled disaster by labelling AIDS ‘humanity’s deadliest cataclysm’.

Suggested Citation

  • Howard Phillips, 2004. "HIV/AIDS in the Context of South Africa’s Epidemic History," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Kyle D. Kauffman & David L. Lindauer (ed.), AIDS and South Africa: the Social Expression of a Pandemic, chapter 3, pages 31-47, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-52351-7_3
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230523517_3
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