Background: Adult HIV prevalence in the nine countries of southern Africa averages more than 16 times the prevalence in other low- and middle-income countries. Previous studies argue that the intensity of the HIV epidemic in southern Africa results from regional characteristics, such as...

This article shows that the burden of certain tropical disease infections, after controlling for other factors, is positively correlated with HIV prevalence. Using cross-national data and multivariate linear regression analysis, we investigate the determinants of HIV prevalence in low- and...

Background: Primary infection of Toxoplasma gondii during pregnancy can be transmitted to the unborn child and may have serious consequences, including retinochoroiditis, hydrocephaly, cerebral calcifications, encephalitis, splenomegaly, hearing loss, blindness, and death. Austria, a country...

Lymphatic filariasis afflicts 68 million people in 73 countries, including 17 million persons living with chronic lymphedema. The Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis aims to stop new infections and to provide care for persons already affected, but morbidity management programs...

This article shows that the burden of certain tropical disease infections, after controlling for other factors, is positively correlated with HIV prevalence. Using cross-national data and multivariate linear regression analysis, we investigate the determinants of HIV prevalence in low- and...

Global AIDS policy has failed to stop the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa because prevention programs are limited by an unscientific theory of disease causation, which assumes that differences in HIV prevalence among populations are adequately explained by variation in rates of unsafe sexual...

An interdisciplinary approach that incorporates biomedical data into an economic analysis provides the necessary foundation for HIV/AIDS policy for poor countries. This article examines the biomedical effects of economic conditions in Africa that contribute to high rates of HIV transmission. The...

Western preconceptions regarding African sexuality distorted early research on the social context of AIDS in Africa and limited the scope of preventive policies. Key works cited repeatedly in the social science and policy literature constructed a hypersexualized pan-African culture as the main...

Global AIDS policy still treats HIV as an exceptional case, abstracting from the context in which infection occurs. Policy is based on a simplistic theory of HIV causation, and evaluated using outdated tools of health economics. Recent calls for a health systems strategy – preventing and...

The notion that concurrent sexual partnerships are especially common in sub-Saharan Africa and explain the region’s high HIV prevalence is accepted by many as conventional wisdom. In this paper, we evaluate the quantitative and qualitative evidence offered by the principal proponents of the...