Macroepidemiology of the HIVs-AIDS (HAIDS) pandemic. Insufficiently considered zoological and geopolitical aspects
Torres-Anjel, M.J.
Annals of the new York Academy of Sciences 653: 257-273
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 0077-8923 PMID: 1626879 DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1992.tb19655.xDocument Number: 322098
Nonhuman primate lentiviruses are the source of the HIV/AIDS (HAIDS) pandemic among humans. Thus HAIDS constitutes a zoonosis. Opportunistic infections which generally are the immediate cause of death in HAIDS patients tend to be zoonoses. Some of these include tuberculosis, cryptococcosis, cytomegalovirus, toxoplasmosis. Pneumocystis carinii, Listeria monocytogenes, and candidiasis. The HAIDS viral ecology paralleled the intense migration of African swine fever into the Caribbean and the continental Americas. Haitian laborers and prostitutes went to Zaire and later returned. Sexual tourism in Haiti and poor Haitian selling their blood for transfusions and production of plasma derivatives to be marketed to developed countries such as the US and France contributed to the spread of HAIDS from Haiti to developed countries. Thus African swine fever and HAIDS originated in this hemisphere from Haiti after being bought to Haiti from Africa. HAIDS began as an endemic regional disease in Africa then became a regional epidemic disease. After African countries gained independence, urbanization increased in Africa which accounted for the spread of HAIDS in each African country. The US and the USSR played their geopolitical games using and/or resulting in famine, war, and disrupted families on the African continent and elsewhere. Thus husbands from 1 continent were moved to armies and labor camps sometimes on another continent. Prostitution spread tremendously to fulfill women's economic needs and men's sexual needs. HAIDS spread along with these events, e.g. Cuba sent troops to Angola where they were mostly stationed near 2 countries with high HAIDS rates, Zaire and Namibia. These troops often returned to Cuba then returned to Africa. During the 1980s, HAIDS prevalence was 45 times higher among Cuban boat refugees and Marielito Cuban immigrants to the US than that claimed for all of Cuba. In fact, their HAIDS prevalence matched that of Cuba's Caribbean neighbors.