An anthropological study carried out in 2006/7 in rural Zambia and peri-urban South Africa documented the impact of co-infection with TB and HIV on poor households in the context of poverty and overstretched public health services.

Zambia and South Africa (SA) are two countries that are seriously affected by the dual epidemics of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV.

Background.

This chapter is intended to respond to the need to better understand the implications of the AIDS pandemic for the agricultural sectors in the hardest-hit countries of eastern and southern Africa.

Over the past 15 years, evidence has accumulated of how HIV/AIDS impacts rural people who depend for their food and livelihood on agriculture and the management of natural resources.

The response to HIV/AIDS in Africa has evolved considerably since the first cases were reported on the continent in the early 1980s.

The AIDS epidemic is a global crisis with impacts that will be felt for decades to come. More than 28 million people have died since the first case was reported in 1981.

HIV/AIDS continues to spread throughout the developing world, in transition countries, and among poor and marginalized populations in industrialized countries.

Rollout of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy under the aegis of the WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative, with funding from numerous donors via the Global Fund for TB, HIV/ AIDS, and malaria, the U.S. PEPFAR and U.K.

The AIDS pandemic is a global crisis with impacts that will be felt for decades to come, demanding massive responses at many levels.

In October 2005, the Consortium for the Southern Africa Food Security Emergency (C-SAFE) transitioned to its final year of a regional “developmental relief ” program.

Based on qualitative fieldwork in urban and rural Zambia (see Bond et al.

Campaigns to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS require accurate knowledge of the characteristics of those most likely to contract the disease.

Highlights from the international conference on HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security

Governments and development agencies require accurate information on the impacts of increased mortality rates caused by AIDS on the agricultural sector and rural livelihoods.

The HIV prevention strategies and programs that are widely promoted in sub-Saharan Africa in large part target HIV awareness and individual behavioral modification – conventionally through the ABC (Abstain, be Faithful and use Condoms) approach to