Cities and Networks of Viral Epidemics; Responses to HIV-1 in Congo Basin
Moderator: Waafa El-Sadr (Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University)
Didier Gondola (Indiana University)
“The Making of a Social Disease: How Violence, Migration, and Gender Revolution Contributed to the Emergence of HIV-1 in Equatorial Africa”
Why and how did HIV-1 emerge in Equatorial Africa during what scientists have narrowed down as HIV-1’s “window of opportunity,” 1908-1933? Rather than focusing on one single trigger and a domino-effect hypothesis, this contribution argues that several cultural and social changes taking place in Equatorial Africa, especially in the twin cities of Kinshasa (formerly known as Leopoldville) and Brazzaville, may have enabled viral adaptation and spread. Among these changes, the introduction of European colonial rule figures prominently as it disrupted local patterns and created conditions for the spread of new diseases. Among the major developments that may have facilitated the emergence of the new viruses in central Africa, urbanization, labor migration related to mining, road and railroad construction, and the movement of colonial troops played a significant role. What the creation of new urban centers and construction projects did was to expand or encourage the growth of practices that were limited or non-existent before, such as migrant forced labor, urban prostitution, sex ratio imbalance, and new, non-local gender patterns.
