By Dr Timothy Stamps

ALL are agreed that HIV infection is a major scourge not only on medical services but the whole development structure of Zimbabwe and indeed, Africa.
I have been thinking a great deal about why HIV, from becoming largely irrelevant in 1990, has attracted so much attention in the 21st Century.
I am sure part of it is our own emotional and spiritual relationship to any sexually transmitted disease and we need to set that aside for a moment and looking objectively at how a new, very weak, virus has captivated the best minds in the world.
We have always had to tread warily on any sexually transmitted condition.
I recall the early 1970’s, no, the late 1960’s, when the Ministry of Health authorities in those days used to avoid traditional venereal diseases such that local authorities were made responsible for those conditions. This avoided the embarrassment of high-ranking officials and ministers.
When I tried to lecture university students in 1969 about the way to prevent STI’s, the then permanent secretary for Health asked why I couldn’t choose a ‘clean’ infectious disease topic. But I have found that ignoring issues does not wish them away.
In the early 1990s, a biology lecturer in one of the universities in Berkely, California, proposed that the rapid development of HIV infection was the result of species transmission. Not from monkeys to human beings, but from cows. Of course, he was met with a derisive, hostile reaction. But I think this all makes sense now.
In the 1970’s, including 1978, the Worlds Health Organisation, was very proud – as indeed I was – of the fact that we had eliminated the scourge of smallpox (variola) from the world.
How it was done was by vaccinating whole tranches of the population with smallpox vaccine which, as the name implies, was derived from cattle.
I must emphasise that not all variola vaccines carried the contamination.
Fast forward to present day. I learnt, only on December 16 2015, that a disease in cattle known as Leukosis, was rampant in all the South African herds and that we did not even test for it in Zimbabwe. Leukosis is a disease in cattle, especially in dairy cows, which is sexually transmitted, and the virus causing it is a Lentevirus, just like HIV – in fact a first cousin.
So I suddenly saw the link. By vaccinating all population, especially in Africa and India, the noble medical effort advertently introduced the infection to man. That also provided another piece of the puzzle where it seemed to me that Africans, if anything, were less promiscuous than their white counterparts – you only have to look at the entertainment pages of any newspaper or magazine, to see how often celebrities change ‘partners’. Charlie Sheen, who is HIV positive, is thought to have infected at least 10 women by trying to pretend his HIV status is negative and furthermore he goes on to brag about having 5 000 women in his life.
I rest my case. The cause of the rapid spread of HIV is not the random promiscuity of any group of people in Africa nor is it the result of our people failing to respond to health warnings. It is the nosocomial accidental introduction of HIV into the general population. I know people will argue that there are certain “hotspots” such as Mutoko, Beitbridge and Chirundu, where truck drivers are wont to satisfy their sexual hunger and these have been identified as areas most in need of medical intervention but nevertheless, I think the HIV epidemic was caused by the inadvertent introduction to the general population of the Lentevirus known initially as HTLV III.
Hon Dr Timothy J. Stamps: Health Advisor in the Office of the President and Cabinet