University of California Irvine The Invisible Cure Paper

Based on class notes and your reading of The Invisible Cure, write an essay on the cultural, political and social structural factors, past and present, that have made the HIV outbreak particularly severe in sub-Saharan Africa and what we have learned about how to deal with such an outbreak. Provide specific evidence from the book to back up your claims.

A good answer will be broad and synthetic. In particular, your essay should address these sets of questions:

• What does the title of the book means? Is there, in fact, an invisible cure, and if so, what is it? How does it work? How reliable is it?
• What factors worsened the outbreak? What factors, both current and historic, made Uganda more successful than many richer countries like South Africa or Botswana at curtailing the spread of HIV?
• What is collective efficacy? How can collective efficacy work for controlling outbreaks of more easily communicable diseases, like Ebola or measles?

While some of you may write more expansively than others, this assignment should run five to six double-spaced pages.