"We typically think of a new epidemic in a "virgin" population as something that arises suddenly, sweeps through the population in a few months, and then wanes and disappears."
Typically, HIV doesn't crop up among virgin populations.
But seriously, this guy is pissed because HIV is different from other plagues where people can develop immunities over time, such as with smallpox, where all survivors are left forever immune to the disease.
Obviously, you either didn't read beyond a certain point or you don't understand what you read or you just ignore what you don't like. The POINT of the article can be capsulated in these excerpt from detailed paragraphs (which you should have read, but didn't):
.....However, it is evident from the WHO data that the African AIDS epidemic is not following the bell-shaped curve of an exponential rise and subsequent sharp drop with immunity, that are typical of infectious epidemics. Instead it drags on like a nutritionally or environmentally caused disease (Seligmann et al., 1984), that steadily affects, what appears to be only a very small percentage of the African population.
.....African AIDS is not a specific clinical disease, but a battery of previously known and thus totally unspecific diseases.....
.....AFRICAN AIDS IS TOO SMALL TO BE DETECTED STATISTICALLY AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF NORMAL AFRICAN MORBIDITY, MORTALITY AND GROWTH RATES
.....The agency's estimates of HIV-positives are indeed just "estimates", because according to the 1985-Bangui definition of African AIDS as well as to the current "Anonymous AIDS Notification" forms of the South African Department of Health - no HIV tests are required for an AIDS diagnosis (Widy-Wirski et al., 1988; Fiala, 1998).
.....In addition the WHO promotes the impression of a microbial AIDS epidemic, by reporting African AIDS cases cumulatively rather than annually (WHO's Weekly Epidemiological Records since the beginning of the epidemic). This practice creates the deceptive impression of an ever growing, almost exponential epidemic, even if the annual incidence declines (Fiala, 1998).
This is retarded, there's no rule that states people's bodies need to develop immunities over time? Is there even evidence that Europeans developed immunities to beubonic plague? He should also be pissed that HIV is not airborne (like smallpox) or waterborne (like cholera), or winterborn (like our very our Socrtease).
Your convoluted logic has NOTHING to due with the facts: Pay attention:
(1) The African AIDS epidemic fails all criteria of a microbial or viral epidemic:
(i) It is steady, i.e. about 75,000 cases per year since the early 1990s, instead of growing exponentially into the large reservoir of 617 million susceptible people, as would be typical of a new viral or microbial epidemic;
(ii) It is not self-limiting via immunity within weeks or months, as is typical of a microbial and particularly of a viral disease. Instead it appears to maintain for years a rather steady share of African morbidity and mortality.
(iii) It is clinically exceedingly heterogeneous totally lacking any specificity of its own, unlike all conventional viral and even bacterial diseases. In conclusion, the African AIDS epidemic does not have even one of the specific characters of a viral or microbial epidemic.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that in this case we are dealing with the Human IMMUNODEFICIENCY Virus, and Aquired IMMUNE DEFICIENCY Syndrome!
No shit sherlock....did you forget that YOU are the one saying HIV=AIDS? Pity you can't logically prove your case.
The alarming tone of WHO's joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, "AIDS epidemic update: December 1999" (UNAIDS December 1999), announcing that Africa had gained 23 million "living with HIV/AIDS", because they are "estimated" carriers of antibodies against HIV, since the "early 80s" (WHO, Weekly Epidemiological Record 73, 373-380, 1998) is equally surprising in view of information available to the agency. Neither the WHO nor the United Nations point out that Africa had gained 147 million people during the same time in which the continent was said to suffer from a new AIDS epidemic. Likewise, South Africa has grown from 17 million to 37 million in 1990 (United Nations Environment Programme, June 15, 2000), and to 44 million now ("HIV/AIDS in the Developing World", U.S. Agency for International Development & U.S. Census Bureau, May 1999). In the last decade South Africa has also gained 4 million HIV-positive people (A. Kinghorn & M. Steinberg, South African Department of Health, undated document probably from 1998, provided at the Pretoria meeting). Thus South Africa has gained 4 million HIV-positives during the same decade in which it grew by 7 million people.
Moreover, although the 23 million "estimated" HIV-antibody positives are said to be "living with HIV/AIDS" by the WHO, the agency does not offer any evidence for morbidity or mortality exceeding the modest numbers, ie. about 75,000 cases annually, reported by the it's Weekly Epidemiological Records (see above).
The agency's estimates of HIV-positives are indeed just "estimates", because according to the 1985-Bangui definition of African AIDS as well as to the current "Anonymous AIDS Notification" forms of the South African Department of Health - no HIV tests are required for an AIDS diagnosis (Widy-Wirski et al., 1988; Fiala, 1998).
In addition the WHO promotes the impression of a microbial AIDS epidemic, by reporting African AIDS cases cumulatively rather than annually (WHO's Weekly Epidemiological Records since the beginning of the epidemic). This practice creates the deceptive impression of an ever growing, almost exponential epidemic, even if the annual incidence declines (Fiala, 1998).
Conspiracy FAIL.
