PHA-Exchange> R: Guinea Bissau in HIV and war

[sunil.deepak at aifo.it]

Dear Satya,

The bit about Guinea Bissau in your article interests me - could you please
elaborate on it? Does the research done by the Belgian researcher say that
HIV spread in GBissau in 60s during the independence war or is it a typo? 

GBissau got independence in 1975 and since 1978, my organization
(AIFO/Italy) has been working with national authorities in G BIssau, first
with setting up of health system and then with national leprosy-TB
programme. During my visits there over last fifteen years, I think that HIV
arrived there in late eighties or early nineties. I vaguely remember a
research study involving sexual workers in Bissau around 1996, that had
found about 20% of HIV positive sexual workers.

They did have a bad civil war between 1998 to 2001, the effects of which are
still there. Does the Belgian research deals with this second period?

BTW, Guinea Bissau, a small country with around 2 million population, had
the famous Paulo Friere living there and helping the government to set up a
new education system after independence (around 1977-79). He even wrote some
books about this experience. Even if theories of Pauolo Friere are very
inspiring, I have always wondered about the lack of any medium or long term
success of his work in changing the destiny of this tiny nation that is
among the last in human development index today! Wonder if anyone in PHM
knows more about it.

Sunil

Director Medical Support Department
AIFO/Italy

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: Satya [mailto:satyasagar at yahoo.com] 
Inviato: lunedì 23 agosto 2004 12.33
A: pha-exchange at kabissa.org
Oggetto: PHA-Exchange> HIV and War

HIV, War & Sexuality
Satya Sagar

<snip>
At the very outset one can look at the role war and
conflict have historically played in the spread of
HIV/AIDS, particularly on the African continent. 

Last year in a study of the HIV epidemic in
Guinea-Bissau , the putative epicenter of the
disease-a team of Belgium researchers concluded that
it remained a low-level infection for many years,
spreading widely only in the 1960s - a period which
coincided with the country's war to gain independence
from Portugal. 

According to their analysis a number of factors
prevalent in wartime - such as mass immunizations with
unsterilised needles - could have helped the virus
spread rapidly. One can safely add that the breakdown
of healthcare systems, the forced migration of
populations, the breakdown of community support
structures during times of conflict are clearly other
reasons for the spread of HIV. 

What holds for Guinea-Bissau is also true for much of
sub-Saharan Africa, which currently has the highest
prevalence of HIV in the world (70 percent of 42
million global cases), thanks to decades of poverty-
both caused by and also the cause of conflict.