HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa: Geographical perspectives

Abstract

HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is perhaps the worst epidemic mankind has ever known. The brunt of the epidemic has been in sub-Saharan Africa, where in 2003 the region was home to 26.6 million people living with HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS 2003 UNAIDS. UNAIDS Fact Sheet, December 2003 http://econserv2. bess.tcdu/collinm/UN%20AIDS%20Africa%202003.pdf , 14 December 2004 [Google Scholar]). The fact that HIV/AIDS has no cure and is found in virtually all the continents of the world has provoked intense scholarly activity. The epidemic has generated a large amount of literature over the past two decades. Our own quick online search through Medline (‘words anywhere’) revealed 200,957 articles on HIV/AIDS in general. ‘HIV/AIDS’ and ‘Geography’ had 260 entries, whereas ‘HIV/AIDS’ and ‘Africa’ listed 8756. Combining the latter with ‘Geography’ gave just 77 titles, none of which need necessarily refer to work by geographers (see, for instance, Asamoah-Odei etal. 2004 Asamoah-Odei, E., Garcia, J. and Boerma, J.T. 2004. HIV prevalence and trends in sub-Saharan Africa: No decline and large sub-regional differences. Lancet, 364 (9428): 35–40. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], , [Google Scholar]). This revelation seems to support Mayer's assertion (this issue) that only a small number of geographers have published research on HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The articles in this special issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography were solicited from the authors, and were designed to capture the contributions of geographers to HIV/AIDS research in Africa. Thus, the articles embody the essential attributes of geographical perspectives, such as space, time, gender, and the integrative aspect. In what follows we present the backgrounds of the authors, discuss what we mean by geographical perspectives, and examine the changing focus of HIV/AIDS research over the years.