Colonisation of Africa sparked HIV epidemic: book
A new book claims to have found the cause of the HIV epidemic, blaming it on colonisation of Africa a century ago.
The newly published Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It, links recent genetic discoveries to European colonial actions a century ago.
Taking a plethora of available evidence into consideration, the authors Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin suggest that the European "Scramble for Africa" during the late 19th and early 20th century helped turn localised outbreaks of the infection into a global epidemic.
The co-authors argue that HIV would never have become a global pandemic without the mobility, urbanisation, medical campaigns and prostitution introduced to central Africa by Europeans.
The book discusses several recent genetic discoveries that have led scientists to where and when the most common strain of HIV – the HIV-1 group M - first crossed over to humans from chimpanzees.
They have traced the crossover event to a dense forest in Cameroon, between 1884 and 1924.
They also maintain that the first human to be infected was probably a hunter butchering chimp bush meat for food.
However, the authors of Tinderbox argue that HIV became an epidemic because of the slave labour conditions prevalent during colonial commerce.
They blame the practice of making men work as porters and creating large urban trading centers.
Kinshasa, the authors say, became the tinderbox for HIV as conditions were created by the colonists for the virus to be transported across national borders and infect millions.
