Aids: living between the lines

HIV feeds on discrimination, writes Pierre Brouard, Dawie Nel and Allanise Cloete. In the Western Cape, HIV infection was first characterised by male to male transmission, and during the early 1980s considered a 'homosexual' epidemic. The epidemic, among what is epidemiologically termed men who have sex with men (MSM), was not taken seriously by the apartheid government, partly because same-sex sexuality was punishable under the law.