The problem with AIDS in Africa is immense, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the eleven newly infected people every sixty seconds in the world, sub-Saharan Africa is host to at least 10 of them (UNAIDS Fact Sheet, 2002). And the problem continues to spread with future projections reaching that of massive proportion. The impact of the AIDS virus is a social problem, a global economic issue, and has come to be a threat to global security. While progress has been made in the war against AIDS, viable solutions for the containment and prevention of the disease remain unidentified.
While widespread media coverage of the disease didn't circulate until the early 1980's, the pandemic is said to have begun in 1950's Belgium Congo. The pandemic's onset, still widely debated in scientific communities, is said by some to have been through way of a contaminated polio vaccine widely used in the region at that time (explaining it's rapid onset). Others are convinced, much to the disdain of many African people, that the disease was spread through chimpanzee-human contact. Many, have discounted the theory however, due to lack of explanation as to the "localized development of the disease- (Peacock, 2000).
It's name acquired in 1982, AIDS, or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, was first identified as a disease of the homosexual, affecting only gay men. It wasn't until 1983 that it's prevalence is exposed in Africa's heterosexual population giving much-needed attention to the growth of the pandemic. By 1985, the manifestation of the disease was evident - at least one case of HIV/AIDS had been reported in every region of the world - making it for the first time a global issue (UNAIDS Fact Sheet, 2001). .
In 1987, the first "community-based response- to AIDS was formed. TASO, formed in Uganda, became a "role model- for AIDS activists worldwide (UNAIDS Fact Sheet, 2001) In February of the same year, the WHO established it's special program on AIDS, which later came to be known at the Global Programme on AIDS.
