The Slow Plague - Peter R. Gould

Based on research by a leading geographer and specialist indiffusion theory, The Slow Plague discloses the geographicdimension of the AIDS pandemic. It provides a lucid description ofthe HIV, its origins, and the extent to which it has now permeatedour lives. The author shows how the virus jumps from city to city,creating regional epicenters from which it spreads into surroundingareas.

Four case studies at different geographic scales demonstrate thedevastating effects of the disease. In Africa the situation iscatastrophic, in Thailand it is rapidly becoming so. In the USthere are over 300,000 people with AIDS and more than one millioninfected by the HIV. The relationships between poverty, drugs andHIV infection are brought out poignantly in a chapter about theBronx.

The author argues that a real understanding of AIDS has beenhampered by conscious or unconscious beliefs that those affectedare, and will continue to be, confined to specific minority groupsand to parts of the Third World. He shows that such views have ledto fundamental misconceptions about the pattern of the spread ofthe disease and about those who will be most at risk, now and inthe immediate future.