There are several different theories about the origin of AIDS and, not surprisingly, a few begin in Africa.

There is, for instance, the African-sex theory. It involves a bizarre (and highly untrue) sexual practice in which, male and female members of tribes bordering the large lakes of Central Africa introduce monkey blood into their pubic areas, thighs and backs.

Then, there’s the cut-hunter theory, recently described by American AIDS researcher, Dr. Robert Gallo. Gallo suggests that since monkeys in Africa are killed for food, a hunter might have nicked himself while skinning an infected monkey and thus might have mixed virus-laden monkey blood with his own; repeated such incidents over time, he argues, could have infected enough people to spark an epidemic.

Additionally, the British scientific magazine Nature presented that the disease may have sprung from scientific experiments lasting into the 50s in which chimpanzee and monkey blood was directly injected into human beings to see if people could carry the form of the malaria parasite that infests those primates.

Over the last 35 years, facts are beginning to surface about the frightening prospect that HIV, the AIDS virus, may have crossed the species barrier as an intended byproduct of a live-polio-virus vaccine. This evidence suggests that AIDS was a man-made disease created to depopulate continents and certain people. There was, in fact, an almost forgotten mass-vaccination campaign in which an oral polio vaccine was administered to at least 325,000 to perhaps a half a million people, in equatorial Africa from 1957 to 1960. One of the two vaccines used was subsequently reported to have been purposely contaminated with an unknown monkey virus (AIDS). In some researcher’s opinions, this was a calculated and cruel attack against African people. The CIA (Technical Services Division) has since acknowledged a secret inoculator’s program and has admitted that it indeed existed.

According to AIDS researcher Boyd E. Graves, in 1971, Progress Report #8 was issued by the United States government. This document stated that by June 1977, the Special Virus program had produced 15,000 gallons of AIDS. The AIDS virus was attached as a complement to vaccines sent to Africa and Manhattan. These vaccines were supposed to vaccinate people from getting polio.

There will always be speculation on where AIDS came from. The fact is that AIDS is here. Over 70 percent of the AIDS cases in the world are in Africa. In just Sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 25.4 million people are living with HIV, and approximately 3.1 million new infections occurred in 2004. In just the past year, the epidemic has claimed the lives of an estimated 2.3 million people in this region. Around 2 million children under 15 are living with HIV and more than 12 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.

It is time the world steps up and seriously helps Africa with this atrocious epidemic. They are human beings that share this planet with us. It is our duty as fellow human beings to help them.

Teddy Harris is a senior communication studies major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. He can be reached at [email protected].