HIV In Sub-Saharan Africa

HIV in Africa Africa is a region of the world often associated with HIV due to the infection’s enduring prevalence on the continent. Specifically, Sub-Saharan Africa is the area of the world with the most infected individuals, approximately 26.6 million with roughly 1.4 million new infections each year (Bowler; White). This equates to 2/3 of all HIV infected individuals around the world. In this region it is harder to obtain treatment than in other areas of the world, with only 41 percent of people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa having access to ART (“Data”). A subset of Sub-Saharan Africa that has the highest epidemic rate is Southern Africa, which consists of nine countries. Table 1 lists the countries in Southern Africa and shows

Some of the most common explanations for the spread of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa are linked to the end of colonial rule, when the disease became an epidemic. With the end of colonialism in the region came civil wars, a breakdown of health and educational services, growing cities, sexual revolutions, and increased travel (Benton). When the Southern African countries gained their independence they were left with broken political systems that had previously been run by colonial powers. This transitional period was riddled with increased poverty, declining per capita income, food insecurity, lower production levels, and increased debt (Nkinyangi). Post independence civil wars were often caused because of cultural differences within a nation as a result of recourse control and clientelism. When colonial powers came to Africa, they created arbitrary boundaries based off of resources they desired, not the cultural differences of the people living in the region. When the colonial powers moved out, African nations were left with the boundaries that the colonists had created. African governments struggled to balance power between the different cultural groups. In many cases this led to violence. Since the end of colonialism in Africa, many of the nations standards of living decreased initially. This left the nations of Southern Africa with infrastructure unable to compete with rising HIV

Southern Africa has an extremely high prevalence of people living with HIV and this had led many international organizations to work on mitigating the epidemic. The governments of countries in Southern Africa are not able to combat the HIV epidemic alone because they do not have the resources. One reason for this is corruption within the health care system. Many times funding is used to help wealthier citizens, while the average citizen is left with minimal resources and limited access to care. Another political issues that has been detrimental to the HIV epidemic is when governmental procedure is slow and inhibits positive change being enacted through drawn out legal