The HIV and AIDS epidemic has been an issue in the world for more than 30 years. The spread of the disease can cone in many forms including sexual contact. There are some countries who have a higher rate of the HIV or AIDS virus than in other countries. This could be due to the concurrency in that country. “Concurrency is when one person sleeps with multiple or several partners” (Kinchlowsky, 2015). Those partners also have sexual relations with other partners. This can be a factor in the high rate of the virus being spread from person to person. This will allow the HIV virus to be spread at a higher rate than if there was not a problem with concurrency. If a country has an increase in people having an increase in concurrent sexual partners then it is inevitable for this virus to decrease or prevent the virus from spreading. It is a never ending cycle in some of the countries who have a higher rate of citizens with the virus.
The HIV virus has had an enormous impact in the African country. People who are having sexual relations concurrently are increasing their problem of the virus. The Concurrency Hypothesis is established to research why the high rate of HIV is in Africa, and how can this be reduced. “The research was complicated to complete because of the lack of data, and having trouble relating the data to the correlation of concurrency” (Lurie, 2010). The empirical information gathered will not work for establishing the connection between concurrency and HIV in Africa. The finding is either not matching or is not logical possible in the research gathered in this effort to prove the relationship between the two issues in that country.
The studies that was gathered had shown low rates of concurrency in Africa and did not prove that this was the cause of the high rate of HIV in Africa. The studies and research completed for the hypothesis could not be used because it did not add up and make since relating to the problem. The look at concurrence in African countries compared to other countries may help in comparison.
Other countries the HIV virus is lower than the countries in Africa. In the United States the HIV rate was approximately one percent, while African was at approximately twenty percent. Thailand had a lower rate than Africa for citizens being infected with the HIV virus. Thailand rate was estimated at nearly two percent. This was surprising because there is a lot of drugs and sex that happen in this country. The rate would thought to have been hire in Thailand than in Africa. The rate for HIV in Africa is puzzling, because there is low limits of ways to spread the virus in the continent. The citizens in Africa and surrounding countries have an extremely high chance of contacting the HIV virus. The ironic issue is that people in African have hardly no intravenous drug use problem, and there is not a lot of people who have concurrent partners.
Concurrency is related other groups besides Africa. In Uganda there used to be neighborhoods of AIDS people who lived there. The article done on this country had proven a wide problem concerning AIDS and concurrency of the people who live there. Many of the other countries such as Kenya and Nigeria won’t have discussion about the AIDS problem, and act like it is not existent in their countries.
African men and women have less sexual partners in their life than the United States, and other countries. The teenagers in Africa experience sex around the same age as teens in other countries like the United States do. This is one of the many reasons the concurrency hypothesis is not able to conclude the reason for high cases of HIV in Africa. The actions of the people contradict the speed of the virus.
Another speculation is the way African people have sexual experiences, and rituals they do. The widow cleanser is when a women is a recent widow there is an elder man who sleeps with them to cleanse there vagina. African women also use plants and leaves to clean themselves. The theory was that this ritual vaginal cleaning had contributed to HIV reception because of open wounds and sores had formed. This was found to be false because in the countries with increased rate of HIV these rituals were not done. The focus was redirected to who and how many sexual partners for the rise in HIV.
The promotion of condoms was not the answer in reducing HIV in Africa. Even though people were wearing condoms they increase was still high. Uganda had the highest rate of people who had contacted the HIV virus in the 1990’s. The situation needed to be handled in a better manner. The only way to do this was abstinence. The country had put this theory in classrooms, and advertisements to increase awareness and prevention of HIV. This had worked because starting in 1991 the HIV rate was 15% and after portraying abstinence for protection the percent fell to five percent in 2001.
It was proven that men were the ones who were spreading and contracting the virus. Men would leave their homes to go out of town to make money and have sex with prostitutes. The males of the houses were forced to leave to support their families and they did not control their sexual urges or stay faithful to their significant other’s. The prostitute were having sex with truckers, workers, and drifter men who were passing through for work. The spread of HIV evolved in a roller coaster of sexual interaction that spread through the continent from country to country.
Work Cited
Kinchlowsky, Sarah. "Multiple and Concurrent Partnership." Agency of Youth (2015): 1-4. web.
Lurie, Mark. "The Concurrency Hypothesis in Sub-Saharan Africa." National Institute of Health (2010): 1-11. Web.
