A construction of knowledge about the AIDS epidemic: Case notifications in perspective (1982 1998)

This book seeks to investigate the construction of knowledge about AIDS as an epidemic phenomenon, based on the analysis of mandatory case reporting. In constructing the natural history of AIDS, changes include discoveries and aspects of the epidemic inherent to each country. As common heritage, diseases have this dual authorship, clinical and epidemiological, both of which take turns complementing medical knowledge. The history of discoveries indicates the production and reformulation of hypotheses (the pieces) that make up the respective pictures (the mosaics) about the disease, sometimes complementing the missing parts, sometimes profoundly modifying the previous fittings. Gradually, the puzzle is put together as pieces that show increasingly specific pictures. Making the notification a monument that speaks of the constitution of its object of knowledge-AIDS-was the main challenge of this book. The context of scientific construction stabilized with the etiological agent, but many pieces were left over, gaps were not fully filled. This preliminary version presents some productive hooks for returning to the next stages of the game, the control of AIDS.

Pagina's: 136, Paperback, Our Knowledge Publishing