When did the aids epidemic in south africa start?
South Africa has had a turbulent past, and this history is relevant to the explosive spread of HIV in the country. 1980s – In 1985, a State of Emergency was declared in South Africa that would last for five years. This was a result of riots and unrest that had arisen in response to Apartheid, the system of racial segregation that had been in place since the 1950s. Apartheid prohibited mixed-race marriages and sex between different ethnic groups, and categorised separate areas in which different races lived. In the same year, the government set up the country’s first AIDS Advisory Group in response to the increasingly apparent presence of HIV amongst South Africans. The first recorded case of AIDS in South Africa was diagnosed in 1982, and although initially HIV infections seemed mainly to be occurring amongst gay men, by 1985 it was clear that other sectors of society were also affected. Towards the end of the decade, as the abolition of Apartheid began, an increasing amount of attenti
