It Was Not the Perfect Storm: The Social History of the HIV-2 Virus in Guinea-Bissau

Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease

article

Jorge Varanda¹  José Maurício Santos³ 

[1] Centre for Research in Anthropology ,(CRIA-UC), Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra;Global Health and Tropical Medicine, Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine-NOVA-Lisbon;Centre for Geographical Studies, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, Universidade de Lisboa;Associated Laboratory TERRA

关键词: HIV-2;    disease emergence;    West Africa;    zoonosis;    biomedical technology;    historical epidemiology;   

DOI  :  10.3390/tropicalmed8050261

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The perfect storm model that was elaborated for the HIV-1M pandemic has also been used to explain the emergence of HIV-2, a second human immunodeficiency virus-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV-AIDS) that became an epidemic in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. The use of this model creates epidemiological generalizations, ecological oversimplifications and historical misunderstandings as its assumptions—an urban center with explosive population growth, a high level of commercial sex and a surge in STDs, a network of mechanical transport and country-wide, en masse mobile campaigns—are absent from the historical record. This model fails to explain how the HIV-2 epidemic actually came about. This is the first study to conduct an exhaustive examination of sociohistorical contextual developments and align them with environmental, virological and epidemiological data. The interdisciplinary dialogue indicates that the emergence of the HIV-2 epidemic piggybacked on local sociopolitical transformations. The war’s indirect effects on ecological relations, mobility and sociability were acute in rural areas and are a key to the HIV-2 epidemic. This setting had the natural host of the virus, the population numbers, the mobility trends and the use of technology on a scale needed to foster viral adaptation and amplification. The present analysis suggests new reflections on the processes of zoonotic spillovers and disease emergence.

【 授权许可】

CC BY