"The Wisdom of Whores..." an HIV/AIDS Monitor update

I was sent this via the HIV/AIDS Monitor listserve and when I started reading it I realized how pertinent it was to this blog.

http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.2246078.0.0.php

"... what she is trying to emphasise is that the more treatment we provide, the more we need prevention."
-Support for funding going to prevention which was iterated in a previous blog entry. The article says that the author of the book, Elizabeth Pisani, believes that since people have been receiving treatment, they start to engage in riskier behaviors and can infect others, which also supports a previous blog entry. Prevention needs to not be forgotten even when treatment is being provided because it is important to tackle the problem from both sides. Treatment gives a band-aid to the problem to keep it under control until it can be eliminated from prevention techniques such as education and awareness.


"The Wisdom Of Whores, hints at the idea that in what she calls the Aids industry, "we are all whores", doing whatever it takes to get money..."
-Dr. Thurman alluded to this in her lecture. How AIDS is considered a hot topic by donors and it is necessary to add 'HIV/AIDS' onto a program or study in order to receive funding. I'm just finishing reading about the 1996 food crisis in Zaire right now, and it the use of the word "whores" applies to that as well, but in the media spectrum. I am going to talk about that in the next blog entry, but I find it interesting.

""If HIV is spread by poverty and gender inequality," she says, "how come countries that have plenty of both - such as Bangladesh - have virtually no HIV? How come South Africa and Botswana, which have the highest female literacy and per capita incomes in Africa, are awash with HIV?""
- We debated in class, especially after Dr. Thurman's lecture that both of these points, but primarily poverty, were one of the largest predictors of HIV/AIDS. I agree that poverty plays an enormous part in HIV- simply in terms of access to health care, education and food, but Pisani brings up a valid point... why is there such small numbers of HIV in Bangladesh? It isn't because the virus hasn't gotten there yet. I wonder what the rate of condom usage is there? Or sexual activity with multiple partners?