Why is South Africa the HIV Capital of the World? An Institutional Analysis of the Spread of a Virus

Kyle D. Kauffman

Chapter 2 in AIDS and South Africa: the Social Expression of a Pandemic, 2004, pp 17-30 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Africa, the poorest region of the world, has the highest HIV/AIDS rate. The puzzling question is why? And even more puzzling, within Africa, why does Southern Africa have the highest HIV rates? Indeed, South Africa has the largest absolute number of people living with HIV of any nation. Was the spread of this virus inevitable in Southern Africa? Or could a firewall have been built by governments and by civil society? This chapter takes a preliminary look at both the formal and the informal institutions in place in South Africa, and by extension in most of Southern Africa, and how they provided the dry underbrush necessary for the rapid spread of HIV in the region.

Keywords: Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type; Institutional Change; Formal Institution; Male Circumcision; Informal Institution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-52351-7_2

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230523517_2

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