Once again, the African people are reminded by the scientific world community that the vacuum created by the nescience and minimal participation of African scientists on the issue of AIDS research can be inimical to the African prestige. According to a 7:30AM news report on Chicago Radio Station, 96.3 FM on June 5, 2000, a new study traced AIDS epidemic to southwest Africa. For sometime, HIV epidemic has been placed on the back seat while it continued to devastate less fortunate communities around the globe. The "global AIDS pandemic have largely been marked by a lack of leadership, compassion, and commitment by government, the private sector, and communities of faith in response to the pain and anguish suffered by millions of children, women, and men caught in the wake of dehumanizing disease and poverty. Leadership is a rare and difficult gift since it often requires risking failure to achieve success." (Gordon Nary and Jose Zuniga, Secure the Future, International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care, May 1999.)

However, the current finding of the origin of HIV as mentioned above is like de-ja vu again. There has been a constant attempt by the developed world to castigate Africa and Africans in a somber and negative way. This modus operandi dates back to centuries ago especially, a period that epitomized the first European encounter with an African or what looks like an African. It was a period when the Europeans were bored of their environment and decided to explore their surroundings and, in the process contributed to inter continental human interaction. According to anthropological findings, an Italian sailor observed what looked like a black person, which upon seeing the sailor dashed into the forest. The observed organism happened to be a gorilla, unfortunately, the Italian sailor thought that he saw an African. This incident lead to the development of a stereotypical theory that Africans have tail. This ignorant portrait of Africans continued for decades even during the dark era of African history in which innocent Africans were violently violated in the name of slave trade in an attempt to satisfy lethargic Europeans, who lacked the vigor to work hard, thus unable to supplant one of the prerequisites of industrial revolution.

Despite this encounter and subsequent exposure to Africans in later years, the African people have to endure the flippancy of being demonized, dehumanized and vilified as the source of world problems. One of such misanthropy belies on the Christian description of God and the Angels captioned in white robe whereas the Devil was an opposite. In a picture that was introduced to the world, specifically to Africa, God and the Angels were painted with blond hairs, pointed noses and dressed in immaculate white robes.

At the other spectrum of eternity was the devil, which was painted black with a long tail and a whip. He was portrayed as the undisputed king of the demons. Also in the hell fire were fat whites that symbolize opulence and one can infer that given the hatred directed toward the Jews in Europe, that the picture was intended to make a caricature of their domination of commerce which in the earlier centuries was regarded as a dirty trade. It was this kind of crass stereotypical predilection that have driven the modern day scientific community in their pursuit of the origin of the HIV disease that causes AIDS.

The acronym used at the discovery of this disease in early 1980s was Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Prior to that the "Center for Disease Control (CDC) called the syndrome gay-related immune deficiency or GRID…(where) acquired immunity is that produced by the specific response of the immune system to foreign antigens. Usually, an antigen is proteinaceous, but an immune response can be mounted to other substances, such as RNA, DNA, and polysaccharides. Acquired immunity is built up within the host after natural infection or immunization… the virus destroys a key component of the specific immune response and makes the host susceptible to so-called opportunistic infections." (Kumc web document, modified 4/26/99)

Early studies of HIV origin show divergent theories some supported by facts mostly spurious and speculative about the origin of AIDS. All the theories so far championed by Euro perspective scientists, pointed to Africa or people of African decent as the breeding ground of HIV. The first theory was that Haitians, whom these scientists portrayed as homosexuals, were the source of HIV. This theory was quickly abandoned when opposition mounted. It could be speculated that had this theory been allowed to evolve, then, one would also point a finger at Greece and other European nations where homosexuality are openly coveted as an alternative life style.

The failure of the Haitian theory means that the HIV scientific origin hunters have to look elsewhere and what better place to look than to Africa. They focused on Africa because Africans lacked the technological know-how that could be marshaled in their defense as the originator of AIDS. Those Africans that have attained the same status as the European scientist were often co-opted and paid large sums of money to work in the European industries, thus being neutralized. The result is a brain drain from Africa and professional indifference to African malady, as they tend to protect the interest of those who pay their bills. This last issue would be visited later in this essay as it applied to contaminated polio vaccine administered in east Africa in the 1950s.

As the Haitian theory crumbled, the search moved to Africa. One of the early theories was xenotransportation. The transmitters were mosquitoes. It was argued that when mosquitoes insert their proboscis into the human skin while drawing blood, that it transmits HIV in the process. This finding was quickly attacked for an obvious reason, potential implication that HIV could have originated from Europe or North America where tropical climate exists. That aside, Dr. Edward Okwori, a Nigerian Pathologist in a published interview with the African News Online, June 19, 2000, responding to a question said that " the enzyme in the mosquitoes kill the organism (HIV in blood). The body system of the mosquito does not have CD4 receptors that can carry the organism." The death of this theory refocused HIV attention back to Africa.

This time the focus on Africa as source of HIV centered on the principle of zoonosis. This is a process where disease has the ability to migrate from animal to human being. In an article titled The Origin of AIDS, published in the InSite of June 24, 1998, Aaron Plant, an associate producer of HIV InSite contended that there are two types of HIVS – HIV-1 and HIV-2. He argued that the HIV-2, which is less virulent, is found in West Africa. This theory assumed that monkeys carry HIV-2, and that as the West Africans eat the monkeys as food, they were able to acquire the disease. This is not the first time zoonosis first emerged as an explanation of HIV origin. The first inference of African HIV connection goes back to the early 1980s when, Robert Gallo of CDC and co-founder of AIDS epidemic issued the first supposedly finding on zoonosis theory.

The most bizarre of this animal Vs human connection was further explored in a case study by Brian Martin in the Peer review and the origin of AIDS – a case study in rejected ideas (BioScience, 1993: 43 pp. 624-627). He argued that Africans acquired AIDS because they kept monkeys as pets. If that is the case, how come the Europeans who practice the same thing cannot be equally culpable as the source of AIDS. Africans does not keep monkey as pets, however, they may be sharing the same ecosystem thus, residing within the same geo-sphere. That contact alone would not be sufficient to conclude that they must have been the incubator or be a carrier of the disease.

In the western world, dogs and cats are kept as pets. They often share the same bed, yet there is no comprehensive and conclusive study that shows that the dog or cat owners have, through zoonosis contracted any disease suffered by their pet.

The most serious problem associated with HIV to date is lack of leadership and the constant attempt to find someone to blame for the origin and spread of this deadly disease. The early discovery of HIV in the United States of America was in 1981, not until 1984 when it was "identified by a team of scientists at the National Cancer Institute headed by Gallo and by another team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris under the direction of Dr. Luc Montagnier (Ronald Kotulak and Jon Van, Chicago Tribune June 2, 1987). The initial conclusion was that it was gay men disease. Despite the death of some prominent personalities like Actor Hudson (although rumored to be gay), the Reagan administration and his conservative government refused to fund a full-scale research on AIDS. The amount invested into research for HIV cure amounted to tokenism and lip service. Reagan had argued that the disease was a curse on the homosexual practices, which indulge in abnormal sexual deviation. Whereas the practices may be abnormal, HIV infection can be likened to nuclear after shock which lacked boundaries, nor does it subscribe to age, ethnicity, gender, color or national origin. The result of this ill-conceived policy grandstanding immensely contributed to the spread of the disease to heterosexuals especially intravenous drug users, and now none drug users through sex.

The result of lack of pursuit for a cure of early finding of HIV can be seen from the statistical report. According to National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, a branch of National Institute of Health, June 12, 2000 Fact Sheet, approximately 33.6 million people have AID as of the end of 1999. Of this, the UNIDS Press Release of January 10, 2000, an estimated 23.3 million infected people with AIDS live in sub Sahara Africa. Of the 33.6 million, 32.4 were adults of which 46 percent are women. NIAID report shows that 16.3 million deaths occurred within the said period, while 80 percent of worldwide HIV infection in 1999 resulted among the heterosexual population. Interestingly, a CDC study in 1998 showed that 60 percent of HIV infections occurred through homosexual sex.

In the United States of America, AIDS was the fifth leading cause of death among the adult population in 1999. Mario Cooper of International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care during his July 29, 1997 briefing of the Congressional Black Caucus stated that "African Americans and Latinos account for over 60 percent of all AIDS cases…90 percent of all babies with AIDS are black" (The AIDS Crisis within the African-American Community, Legislative Report – African Americans and AIDS, October/November 1997 issue of THEMIS). The devastation is palpable given that both ethnic groups accounts for less than 25 percent of the population.

African case is more disturbing; especially Nigerian where one in five Africans reside. Africa is not known as a major drug producer like South America and Asia. That does not mean that Africans were not involved with drug trafficking. However, the European type of intravenous drug shooting where drug users tend to share needles thereby facilitating HIV infection, is not common in Africa.

There has been all sort of theories describing how the Africans became the source of HIV. One of such theories stated that they injected themselves with monkey blood. Another theory holds that HIV has been with the Africans for decades (Ronald Kotulak, et al). But the most notable of these theories was the Polio vaccine mischief. According to African News Online of October 15, 1999, Edward Hooper, a former BBC African correspondence wrote that "vaccine used in the CHAT experimental vaccine (sic) programme, which was carried out (in the 1950s) in the then Belgian colonies of Ruande-Urandi (now Rwanda and Burundi) and the Democratic Republic of Congo, could have accidentally been contaminated by a monkey virus containing the HIV virus’s closest "relative" – the simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV." (Also see "what happens when science goes bad. The corruption of science and the origin of AIDS: A study in spontaneous generation by Louis Pascal with introduction by Brian Martin (University of Wollongong, Science and Technology Analysis Research Programme, Working paper No. 9, December 1991)

Interestingly, all attempts to publish Hooper’s account of origin of HIV were spurned by major medical academic journals. It was speculated that those who were involved with the African Polio vaccine experimentation do not want to talk about it out of fear for potential backlash from the sponsor of research grants. The African News Online contended that " 39 African HIV-positive blood counts taken during the pre-1980 period, more than 87 percent came from towns where CHAT trials took place and 100 percent within a 140-km radius of CHAT vaccination sites. "

UNAIDS Press Release of March 30, 2000 shows that Nigeria will be instrumental in the fight for HIV epidemic. The report showed a survey where "5.4 percent of the adult population, or 2.6 million of the country’s 120 million people, are infected with HIV …in Zimbabwe and Zambia, HIV- infected patients occupy 50 – 80 percent of all urban hospital beds." The Nigerian problem stems from two major fronts:

Return of prostitutes from Europe where more than 70 percent of those tested were positive.

Nigerians living abroad who acquired the European lifestyles that are susceptible to acquisition of HIV? This group is the most dangerous source of infection as most may not know that they are infected.

In the attempt to deflect the demonization of Africa, other research have suggested a potential source of HIV other than the known fact that homosexuality played a major role. Dr. Leonard Horowitz of Harvard University published an article on the Well Being Journal in March/April 1996 titled "Magic and AIDS" where he concluded that in his book titled "Emerging Viruses" that AIDS was a result of immune failure as a result of environmental chemicals and its radioactive effects.

Others like BBC African radio programs of January 11, 2000; April 17,2000 and June 8, 2000 have continue on the path of attempting to seek out those they perceived to be suffering from HIV in the southern Africa in a propaganda rampage. It is unfortunate that the African professionals who should be looked upon, who were supposed to refute these this type of scientific fanatics, garbage and broad day light defamation that set the continent three decades back were lacking in temerity, or were neutralized as a result of funding which guarantee their jobs. Now it is left to the same Europeans to define Africa and redefine it as they wish and a few to defend it.

Those who continue to insinuate that man-made disaster emerged from Africa would not stop because they know that money talks as the saying goes in Nigeria. As long as the corporate grants continue to flow, more fingers would be directed to those vulnerable as the source of HIV. All the statistics sited so far by various organizations are based on estimate and projection. In fact, it was stated that about 2.2 million Africans die of AIDS annually. This figure is more than the combination of all Africans killed in all African wars and other disasters put together. The problem with this statistic is that in Africa, autopsy is rarely administered in order to find the cause of death. In some cultures, it is a taboo to remove any part of the body of the dead, which is due to the belief on reincarnation. In fact, majorities of African villages do not have a hospital thus; the people are rubbed of the need to know the curse of death. Again, this trite practice makes the statistical proclamation of the various bodies regarding the number of HIV infection suspicious.

All these apart, what good does it do when enormous resources that could be used to find a cure for HIV is misused and directed into an AIDS fishing expedition to Africa? Recently, President Clinton have issued a directive to drug manufacturers to lower the cost of HIV drugs that goes to the developing nations. That is a better policy than the denial by Reagan and Bush administrations, which cost the world more than ten years of understanding the HIV disease. In Nigeria, a dose of HIV vaccine cost N5,200 and according to Dr. Okwori, a patient needs at least four doses at a cost of N20,000. This is a country where the minimum wage has just been raise to N5,000 per month.

Finally, HIV is the disease of the 20^th century and beyond as syphilis was of some decades ago. Syphilis afflicted the Europeans and one could imagine what would have happened had it occurred in a recent memory? Perhaps, it would be treated the same way that HIV is being treated - blame it on Africans. However, the disease was contained, thanks to the tenacity and the dexterity of those involved. Gordon Nary wrote on the article titles "Death Takes a Holiday" that "as important as it is to unlock the mysteries of the human immunodficiency virus and better understand more effective ways of using our imperfect agents to extend the lives of those who are privileged to be antiretroviral aristocrats, their is also the noblesse oblige mandate for aristocrats to also attend to the need of the millions of the poor without access to effective, inexpensive antiretroviral agents."

To the African professionals, wake up and defend your profession and your people. HIV is not an African disease, but HIV imported from abroad is devastating Africa. The extent of its effect may not be known until autopsies become mandatory, meanwhile, the stereotyping of Africans will continue unabated.