Why is Africa so ill?

Why is Sub-Saharan Africa seemingly so disease-ridden compared to the rest of the world? Is it just because humans have lived there longer than anywhere else, so a lot more diseases are endemic to humans? Is it just an artifact, perhaps, of European perception?
 
Why is Sub-Saharan Africa seemingly so disease-ridden compared to the rest of the world? Is it just because humans have lived there longer than anywhere else, so a lot more diseases are endemic to humans? Is it just an artifact, perhaps, of European perception?

AIDS, even in nations that have good/great health care AIDS is a big issue
 
AIDS, even in nations that have good/great health care AIDS is a big issue

AIDS has only existed since after 1900. If you didn't notice, I put this in the before 1900 forum.

@Komeyta: Well, the Southern US wasn't so disease ridden, despite mosquitoes and endemic yellow fever (and malaria? Nasty mosquito-borne stuff, anyways). India had enough malaria to have native sickle-cell carriers, as did parts of Southern Europe. Mosquitos clearly can't be the only explanation.
 
@Komeyta: Well, the Southern US wasn't so disease ridden, despite mosquitoes and endemic yellow fever (and malaria? Nasty mosquito-borne stuff, anyways).
Did you read the thread I started "Does Europe have screens?" It has a link to the appalling conditions of the south in the 1930s and before and how wearing shoes (preventing hookworm) screens (preventing malaria) and a dietary change (preventing pellarga) all had important effects. The southeastern US was very much disease ridden contributing to its lack of economic development v. the northern and western states in the period.
 
The explanation that I have heard is that since humanity evolved in Africa, there is a much greater variety of diseases and parasites that have evolved in Africa alongside us. It's a nastier version of the idea that the reason megafauna survived in Africa and not elsewhere is that it had time to get used to hominid predators and develop survival strategies.

Once humanity escaped from the petri dish of it's birth, it was out of range of its traditional disease and parasite environment. Civilization ensued.
 
There is the simple reason that Africa is a tragically undeveloped part of the world. Malaria and disease simply do better if there isn't the money to build the sewers, hospitals, and other amenities that we 1st worlders enjoy.
 
Why is Sub-Saharan Africa seemingly so disease-ridden compared to the rest of the world? Is it just because humans have lived there longer than anywhere else, so a lot more diseases are endemic to humans? Is it just an artifact, perhaps, of European perception?

No, it's definitely disease-ridden. It's the mosquitos, and other parasitic forms of life. There are worms in all the water, it's just a death-trap.

It wasn't as bad before. The natives had strategies for dealing with it, but the imperial powers thought Black people were retards and made them stop all their "inefficient" practices, which caused disease to spread everywhere horrendously.

I'll give an example: Bunyoro used to fight sleeping sickness by completely burning the entirely of the grasslands every year (killed off the tse-tse fly) and massive game hunts, which killed off primary disease carriers. The British stopped both, causing the population of Bunyoro to plummet, and it continued to shrink from the time of conquest until the 1950s.
 
There is the simple reason that Africa is a tragically undeveloped part of the world. Malaria and disease simply do better if there isn't the money to build the sewers, hospitals, and other amenities that we 1st worlders enjoy.

It's not really that, though. We didn't have malaria and yellow fever throughout Europe before all that - in fact it was more endemic in the Med region, which DID have fairly advanced sewers, hospitals, etc.

It's simply the climate and environment. What was disastrous was trying to apply European infrastructure and systems in an environment that demanded different solutions. That's one of the reasons imperial conquest was such a massive disaster for Africa. If African societies had been exposed to the superior technology and organization of Europe and used these to further their own strategies for mastering their environment, there's no reason why they shouldn't be far better off today than they are.

There are limits though: Africa simply isn't as rich or environmentally robust as Europe. Northern Europe's weather really sucks, but it does provide reliable rainfall.
 
The explanation that I have heard is that since humanity evolved in Africa, there is a much greater variety of diseases and parasites that have evolved in Africa alongside us. It's a nastier version of the idea that the reason megafauna survived in Africa and not elsewhere is that it had time to get used to hominid predators and develop survival strategies.

Once humanity escaped from the petri dish of it's birth, it was out of range of its traditional disease and parasite environment. Civilization ensued.

No, it's really the climate. Note that Africans didn't all drop dead from smallpox when Europeans showed up. They're disease resistance was built up to the same things as Europeans, plus many to which Europeans were not, as was proved by the horrendous death-toll Europeans experienced there.

Europe has the immense benefit of winters to wipe out all the evil bugs. Imagine if mosquitos could breed year round...
 
No, it's really the climate. Note that Africans didn't all drop dead from smallpox when Europeans showed up. They're disease resistance was built up to the same things as Europeans, plus many to which Europeans were not, as was proved by the horrendous death-toll Europeans experienced there.

Europe has the immense benefit of winters to wipe out all the evil bugs. Imagine if mosquitos could breed year round...

Well, climate does account for a lot of things. I'd even say it accounts for most, but there's no arguing that the parasite situation for humans is much worse in Africa than in, say, Brazil. Organisms develop ecological diversity the longer they are exposed to an environment, and have trouble adapting to new ones. African parasites have had access to the large-primate "environment" for a million years plus, those in South America for less than a fiftieth of that. What parasites of primates there are in the area have had much less time to adapt to infecting humans.
 
Did you read the thread I started "Does Europe have screens?" It has a link to the appalling conditions of the south in the 1930s and before and how wearing shoes (preventing hookworm) screens (preventing malaria) and a dietary change (preventing pellarga) all had important effects. The southeastern US was very much disease ridden contributing to its lack of economic development v. the northern and western states in the period.

Well, it clearly wasn't uninhabitable for Europeans until they developed vaccines and modern medicines the way a lot of sub-Saharan Africa was, so it was less disease-ridden, at least.
 
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