HIV-2: Emergence and Epidemiology
Moderator: Susan Perkins (Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History)
Jorge Varanda (Coimbra University, Portugal)
“HIV-2 in Guinea-Bissau”
That “Guinea-Bissau is inextricably linked with the emergence and spread of the HIV-2” is a statement easier written than proven. Departing from an interdisciplinary perspective this presentation attempts to bring into dialogue biomedical disciplines (e.g. virology or evolutionary biology) with comprehensive historical and anthropological data to better conceptualize the emergence and spread of HIV-2. A diachronic, “bottom-up” perspective on the complexity of life during the era of Portuguese colonial overrule will help to discern the broad factors that constitute the foundation of the present-day perceptions regarding the spread of the virus (war, migrations, urbanization, parental transmissions, commercial sex activity, migration, GUD, and scarification or circumcision practices) and contribute to the construction of more complex understandings of the spread of HIV-2. In doing so, process conceptualizations about the spread of HIV-2 are favored over diffusion and cause-and-effect analyses. By grasping the importance of local/regional contexts, this presentation contributes to a more robust understanding of the set of complex processes that shaped the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which continue to feature key resonances related to the present-day situation not only in Africa or AIDS-related but also globally and with new diseases.
