HIV & AIDS: A Very Short Introduction

By Alan Whiteside

Book Overview

In 2008 it was believed that HIV/AIDS was without doubt the worst epidemic to hit humankind since the Black Death. The first case was identified in 1981; by 2004 it was estimated that about 40 million people were living with the disease, and about 20 million had died. Yet the outlook today is a little brighter. Although HIV/ AIDS continues to be a pressing public health issue the epidemic has stabilised globally, and it has become evident it is not, nor will it be, a global issue. The worst affected regions are southern and eastern Africa. Elsewhere, HIV is found in specific, usually, marginalised populations, for example intravenous drug users in Russia.

Although there still remains no cure for HIV, there have been unprecedented breakthroughs in understanding the disease and developing drugs. Access to treatment over the last ten years has turned AIDS into a chronic disease, although it is still a challenge to make antiviral treatment available to all that require it. We also have new evidence that treatment greatly reduces infectivity, and this has led to the movement of 'Treatment as Prevention'. In this Very Short Introduction Alan Whiteside provides an introduction to AIDS, tackling the science, the international and local politics, the fascinating demographics, and the devastating consequences of the disease. He looks at the problems a developing international 'AIDS fatigue' poses to funding for sufferers, but also shows how domestic resources are increasingly being mobilised, despite the stabilisation of international funding. Finally Whiteside considers how the need to understand and change our behaviour has caused us to reassess what it means to be human and how we should operate in the globalizing world.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198727496
• ISBN13: 9780198727491
• Release Date: February 2017
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

A useful short introduction to the AIDS epidemic

HIV virus is probably the most dreaded virus in modern times, and the disease that it causes - AIDS - has come to symbolize the latter-day plague. Despite the monumental attempts at finding a cure for AIDS or at least an HIV vaccine, this disease remains almost as intractable as when it first came to wide attention in the early 1980s. In the West AIDS remains the disease that is associated with socially marginalized groups, while globally its greatest impact is on poor countries, with the sub-Saharan Africa carrying the disproportionate number of victims. In the light of all of that all of us would be amiss if we did not get a better understanding of this dreadful disease. "HIV/AIDS - A Very Short Introduction" is a good book to learn the important facts about HIV/AIDS from. The book is filled with a lot of statistical data and many charts. It provides an astute assessment of the prevalence and the spread of AIDS throughout the world. It deals with various social, political and economic aspects of AIDS and the author covers these topics in great detail. This is a particularly good book to read if you are interested in the public policy aspects of the AIDS epidemic. Knowing how important a book like this is for educating public about the most important facts about AIDS, it would seem uncharitable to point out its flaws. Nonetheless, here are a few issues that I had with the book and points that I think could be improved. * The book could have used some more editing. There are quite a few awkward sentences, and many others that are rather banal. * The book does not spend too much time on pointing out the precautions and measures that are practical and effective at preventing AIDS at the level of an individual. Obviously we can infer that being a member of any of the higher-risk groups should be avoided, but this is nowhere really spelled out not even commented upon. This might due to the fact that this book is more aimed at describing AIDS as a phenomenon, rather than influencing individual behavior, but on the other hand the author is quick to pass judgment on governments and other groups for their approach to the problem of AIDS. * The author shows clear bias in favor of some AIDS-prevention programs and measures and in opposition to others, but at no point in this book are we given any justification (quantitative or otherwise) for this particular set of attitudes. Many of these attitudes expressed by the author have been promoted extensively in the media, and most of them do make sense, but it would have been useful in a book like this one to be more precise and give a justification for those attitudes that goes beyond what some interest group may be advocating. * My background is in natural science, and I would have liked if more room had been given to the scientific description of the HIV virus itself - its shape, form, what makes it so virulent, and why have all attempts at creating a successful vaccine failed so far. Even in a very shor