African Affairs Advance Access originally published online on January 18, 2006
African Affairs 2006 105(419):201-218; doi:10.1093/afraf/adi104
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AIDS, security and the military in Africa: A sober appraisal
Alan Whiteside is the director of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Alex de Waal is a director of Justice Africa, Research Fellow, Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University, and program director at the Social Science Research Council.
Lt-Gen (retd) Tsadkan Gebre-Tensae is director of the Centre for Policy Research and Dialogue, Addis Ababa.
This article examines four accepted wisdoms about HIV/AIDS and African armies and in each case concludes that substantial revision is necessary in the light of emerging evidence. First, it appears that military populations do not necessarily have a higher prevalence of HIV than civilian populations. HIV levels in armies depend on many factors including the demographics of the army, its pattern of deployment, the nature and stage of the epidemic in the country concerned, and the measures taken to control the disease by the military authorities. Second, although the epidemic has the potential to undermine the functioning of national militaries, and may have done so in isolated instances, armies in general are well placed to withstand the threat. Third, evidence that war contributes to the spread of the virus is meagre and suggests that we should be concerned primarily with specific risks that conflict may entail including population mobility and changing sexual networks. Lastly, the hypothesis that AIDS has the potential to disrupt national, regional, and international security remains speculative.
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