LICENTIA COGITATIONIS

I. Surveillance: Coloniality and Complicity   The History of the African AIDS Epidemic Routine monitoring and sample collection by Western-based corporations identified novel viral signatures in blood but concealed these findings from workers and public health authorities. The lack of surveillance technology to identify it didn’t mean HIV wasn’t spreading,; it meant systems of power failed to look further, fund research, or listen to affected communities. Their silence was an act of violence and serves as evidence of the power that health surveillance technologies have in forecasting and deciding the future.  Evidence from Kinshasa, once a Belgian colonial outpost, reveals HIV in archived blood specimens dating back to the 1950s and 60s. The virus moved slowly along colonial trade routes here,  incubating in silence, before reaching urban centers where it eventually drew institutional attention. Yet even then, the signs were ignored. For nearly  two decades,  as...

Introduction This is an ethnographic record of the founding of Molecular HIV Surveillance (MHS), Rapid Cluster Detection and Response program of **Department of Health, written as an email reply to my initial correspondence, which I have also included for reference. The author happens to be an old friend of mine, whom I did not know was responsible for the development of this program; but after learning about her integral role in operationalizing the call to action by CDC, I reached out immediately. Our historical relationship afforded me an opportunity to be more familiar about the issue and inquires I have about MHS, which prompted the following narrative. From the source email: I did the  outreach to laboratories  to try to get them to voluntarily submit the genotypes to us (since they weren’t legally reportable yet so, technically, they did not have to send us anything).  We had legislation working its way through  so we knew (and hoped) it would just be a ma...

I recently read through the CDC's DETECTING AND RESPONDING TO HIV TRANSMISSION CLUSTERS : A GUIDE FOR HEALTH DEPARTMENTS (2018), and have more questions than I began with, especially regarding the scope of technological functions and surveillance strategies, the ethical implications and social effects in prioritized populations, and the cultural toll it will have in the minoritized community with a history of mistrust for public health institutions.  Medical Monitoring Project ( VDH Stakeholder Meeting: 2015) -Ongoing supplemental surveillance system assessing behaviors and clinical characteristics of persons w/HIV who have received outpatient HIV medical care.  -To learn more about the experiences and needs of people receiving care -Funded by CDC HIV Incidence Surveillance  - Provides estimates of the number of new HIV infection over a certain period of time. - Incidence refers to persons newly infected with HIV in a specified time period, whereas a person newly diagnose...