ANTH 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Epidemiological Transition, Bushmeat, Simian Immunodeficiency Virus
6 Aug 2020
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Document Summary
Hiv is evolved from siv (simian immunodeficiency virus) Siv is an older virus and may have been in chimps for thousands of years, which may be why we don"t see massive mortality. There are so many strains of siv. Chimpanzees acquired siv from eating african monkeys, which probably has occurred for a very long time. Gombe chimps exhibit siv-cpz (chimpanzee), discovered in 1999 and thought to be harmless until 2009; now evidence that siv+ chimps are 15 times more likely to die of illnesses, and mothers far more likely to have infants die. Idea that the people under the colonial system were not well off: the belgians were the worst, these people were treated so poorly that they contracted the disease easily and it affected them harshly. They were weak and ripe for the virus to take control. Medical anthropology is about the fact that other cultures have different medical practices that they believe to be equally effective.
