HIV is not a disease of poverty, but a result of a culture of concurrent sexual relationships, says the Mail & Guardian.
The differences in HIV prevalence between South Africas racial groups are as large as those between countries with the highest and lowest prevalences in the world.
It follows that examining the different sexual behaviours underpinning these differences would likely provide helpful clues about what is driving our ongoing high HIV transmission rates. Why then has no such study been published in South Africa?
The prevalence rates are 19.9%, 3.2% and 0.5% for 15- to 49-year-old Africans, coloureds and whites respectively. The dominant explanation for the racial differences in HIV prevalence is that these merely reflect the fact that HW is a disease of poverty.
