“I wish I’d die right then” this was “Laetitia” reaction when she found out she was infected with HIV. (Breaking 36) Imagine living in a home in Africa, with 10 other people including yourself, then finding out that two of them live with one of the worst epidemics ever AIDS! What can the residents of Africa do to stop it? Is there a possibility that it could be stopped? Scientist have a number of theories about this epidemic, but recent news show that AIDS is not as silent as predicted. Where does the virus come from? Who is involved in this epidemic?
Who are the most affected? Answer is the residents of the continent of Africa. “AIDS epidemic may be just one of the latest of sexual Mammalian cross-species viral transfer, triggers by the techniques of virology developed in the 20th century, which subsequently spread out of control in the new host species. Which there was a missing link too. ” (Breaking N. P. ) According to most scientist it has been said that AIDS first appeared in Mid-Africa in 1959, in Leopoloville, The Bulling Congo, and Kinshasa, Africa. It does suppose to have come from a “single common ancestor”.
What is meant is that it might have come from a vaccine that the United States secret military service was trying to create for polio. (Curtis 54) The U. S. hired a naturalized American polio researcher from Switzerland named Hilary Koprowsky. Dr. Koprowsky traveled to the epicenter of the epidemicBelgian Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Dr. Koprowsky believed that by contracting liquid from chimps, or monkeys it would avoid the contamination of polio. Reason for that is because he would do test among the apes, and they would be immune to it.
He then first tried the vaccine on children who where suppose to be “mentally deficient”. Then several African citizens would volunteer to be vaccinated for money. Four years later Dr. Koprowsky warned congress that it could be dangerous, and that the experiments should be stopped. Between 1957-60, a missing link was found in chimps from Gallo. Monkeys, and it’s kingdom have a virus similar, therefore if it is transfer to human, it turns into Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV), after a period of 7-10 years or less it turns on to AIDS. This led to find out that AIDS virus would eventually turn up on humans.
There are several tribes all over Africa. Most of them share different believes, and religions. In the border of central Africa there is a tribe that uses a ritual, that is a bizarre sexual practice. It is suppose to cause “sexual arousal”, the dominant male of the tribe will pick his mate for the night, or day. Then they both introduce monkey blood into their pubic areas, thighs, and backs. Those tribes seem to believe that they are immune to any virus that would stop them from using their “ritual”, and their “Gods” will protect them.
This is called “the kinky-sex-theory”, this might have been one of the possible ways that most tribes live with the virus. (Curtis 54) There have been various arguments, and theories on how the virus was primarily contracted in Africa. It is suggested by studies that the virus has been around for a while now. It has been studied that some Africans tribes “where”, and still “are” immune to it. When rural Europeans, and Americans came near the tribes in the early 1900’s, they got involved with the tribes and got infected, which then caused and epidemic.
Most of the “mix” marriages have spread the virus through out Europe, and America, not knowing that it would cause such a huge epidemic. There are several ways which the virus may be contracted, tribes in southern Africa hunt for monkey meat in the wild. Dr. Robert Gallo suggest that after the hunter has trap his monkey, and tried slitting the monkey, his skin might get cut, and the blood from the monkey might have been contracted. After the hunter gets infected, who would not know, and will reproduced, and infects feature offspring, and the females in the tribes. In which most cases, most tribes share sexual
