HIV/AIDS and Democratic Governance in South Africa

HIV/AIDS and Democratic Governance in South Africa
Author: Per Strand
Publisher: Institute for Democracy in South Africa
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2005
Genre: Medical
ISBN:

Part of a continent-wide study being carried out by the Governance and AIDS Programme of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), this book brings together the most recent and substantive empirical evidence pertaining to the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the democratic process and political dynamics in South Africa.

AIDS and Power

AIDS and Power
Author: Alex de Waal
Publisher: Zed Books
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2006-07
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781842777077

Publisher Description

Preparing for the Future of HIV/AIDS in Africa

Preparing for the Future of HIV/AIDS in Africa
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2011-03-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309212073

HIV/AIDS is a catastrophe globally but nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa, which in 2008 accounted for 67 percent of cases worldwide and 91 percent of new infections. The Institute of Medicine recommends that the United States and African nations move toward a strategy of shared responsibility such that these nations are empowered to take ownership of their HIV/AIDS problem and work to solve it.

Health & Democracy

Health & Democracy
Author: Jonathan Berger (LLM.)
Publisher: Section27
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2007
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN:

This title is a must have for anyone in the health sector as it highlights the key issues that constitute and affect health law in post apartheid South Africa.

Biomedical Hegemony and Democracy in South Africa

Biomedical Hegemony and Democracy in South Africa
Author: Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020-12-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004436421

In Biomedical Hegemony and Democracy in South Africa Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta and Tabi Chama-James Tabenyang unpack the contentious South African government’s post-apartheid policy framework of the ‘‘return to tradition policy’’. The conjuncture between deep sociopolitical crises, witchcraft, the ravaging HIV/AIDS pandemic and the government’s initial reluctance to adopt antiretroviral therapy turned away desperate HIV/AIDS patients to traditional healers. Drawing on historical sources, policy documents and ethnographic interviews, Pemunta and Tabenyang convincingly demonstrate that despite biomedical hegemony, patients and members of their therapy-seeking group often shuttle between modern and traditional medicine, thereby making both systems of healthcare complementary rather than alternatives. They draw the attention of policy-makers to the need to be aware of ‘‘subaltern health narratives’’ in designing health policy.

Ancestors and Antiretrovirals

Ancestors and Antiretrovirals
Author: Claire Laurier Decoteau
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2013-09-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 022606462X

In the years since the end of apartheid, South Africans have enjoyed a progressive constitution, considerable access to social services for the poor and sick, and a booming economy that has made their nation into one of the wealthiest on the continent. At the same time, South Africa experiences extremely unequal income distribution, and its citizens suffer the highest prevalence of HIV in the world. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has noted, “AIDS is South Africa’s new apartheid.” In Ancestors and Antiretrovirals, Claire Laurier Decoteau backs up Tutu’s assertion with powerful arguments about how this came to pass. Decoteau traces the historical shifts in health policy after apartheid and describes their effects, detailing, in particular, the changing relationship between biomedical and indigenous health care, both at the national and the local level. Decoteau tells this story from the perspective of those living with and dying from AIDS in Johannesburg’s squatter camps. At the same time, she exposes the complex and often contradictory ways that the South African government has failed to balance the demands of neoliberal capital with the considerable health needs of its population.

HIV/AIDS, Gender, Human Security, and Violence in Southern Africa

HIV/AIDS, Gender, Human Security, and Violence in Southern Africa
Author: Monica Kathina Juma
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2011
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0798302534

In the 10 years since the United Nations Security Council's first resolution on HIV/AIDS, the pandemic has had far-reaching implications for human security. In sub-Saharan Africa, the epicentre of the pandemic, the consequences have been borne disproportionately by women. Violent conflicts and insecurity throughout the region, characterised by population movements, forced migration and environmental crises, have overwhelmed the capacity of states to provide preventative measures against HIV/AIDS, care and treatment. In many areas, the related stress factors on health systems and basic service provision have pushed community and kinship networks beyond their breaking points. The plight of women is exacerbated because they are vulnerable and at high risk of HIV infection, due to increased care burdens within the household and community, sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation, as well as coercive interpersonal relationships. This volume is a welcome addition to the literature on HIV/AIDS and should serve as a useful tool for Aids activists, community health workers as well as for policy makers in the region

When Bodies Remember

When Bodies Remember
Author: Didier Fassin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2007-03-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520940458

In this book, France's leading medical anthropologist takes on one of the most tragic stories of the global AIDS crisis—the failure of the ANC government to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Didier Fassin traces the deep roots of the AIDS crisis to apartheid and, before that, to the colonial period. One person in ten is infected with HIV in South Africa, and President Thabo Mbeki has initiated a global controversy by funding questionable medical research, casting doubt on the benefits of preventing mother-to-child transmission, and embracing dissidents who challenge the viral theory of AIDS. Fassin contextualizes Mbeki's position by sensitively exploring issues of race and genocide that surround this controversy. Basing his discussion on vivid ethnographical data collected in the townships of Johannesburg, he passionately demonstrates that the unprecedented epidemiological crisis in South Africa is a demographic catastrophe as well as a human tragedy, one that cannot be understood without reference to the social history of the country, in particular to institutionalized racial inequality as the fundamental principle of government during the past century.

Stones of Hope

Stones of Hope
Author: Lucie White
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2011
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0804769206

Stones of Hope shows how African human rights activists have opened new possibilities for justice in the everyday lives of the world's most impoverished peoples.

Africa and Global Health Governance

Africa and Global Health Governance
Author: Amy S. Patterson
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2018-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1421424509

A timely inquiry into how domestic politics and global health governance interact in Africa. Global health campaigns, development aid programs, and disaster relief groups have been criticized for falling into colonialist patterns, running roughshod over the local structure and authority of the countries in which they work. Far from powerless, however, African states play complex roles in health policy design and implementation. In Africa and Global Health Governance, Amy S. Patterson focuses on AIDS, the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak, and noncommunicable diseases to demonstrate why and how African states accept, challenge, or remain ambivalent toward global health policies, structures, and norms. Employing in-depth analysis of media reports and global health data, Patterson also relies on interviews and focus-group discussions to give voice to the various agents operating within African health care systems, including donor representatives, state officials, NGOs, community-based groups, health activists, and patients. Showing the variety within broader patterns, this clearly written book demonstrates that Africa's role in global health governance is dynamic and not without agency. Patterson shows how, for example, African leaders engage with international groups, attempting to maintain their own leadership while securing the aid their people need. Her findings will benefit health and development practitioners, scholars, and students of global health governance and African politics.