Is It AIDS? Or Is It Kaliondeonde? Preliminary Assessment of an Indigenous AIDS-like Illness in Zambia

Abstract

Background: Kaliondeonde is an AIDS-like immunosuppressive illness of unknown etiology common in Zambia and Malawi. It has similar, but not identical, symptoms to HIV/AIDS, and appears to have been in south central Africa longer. It is often viewed by both the public and academics as being the same as HIV/AIDS. Method: Research was conducted in Zambia among seven kaliondeonde patients to determine the perceptions of the sickness, and the symptoms of the disease, in comparison with HIV/AIDS. A subset of four of the patients were examined by both a traditional healer and a physician, and tested for HIV. Results: Two of the four kaliondeonde patients were found to be HIV negative, suggesting the possibility that kaliondeonde is different from HIV/AIDS. Conclusions: If future research confirms that many kaliondeonde patients are in fact HIV-negative, it will become vitally urgent to clarify the distinctiveness of the two illnesses and alter perceptions and knowledge of kaliondeonde prevention, epidemiology, etiology, and clinical practices.

Perceptions of HIV and Mental Illness as “Western” or “Traditional” Illnesses: A Cross-Sectional Study from Limpopo Province, South Africa

“…While a small minority of participants identi ed HIV as possibly being of traditional or "supernatural" origins -such as bewitchment -this was usually through describing HIV as having a sort of dual identity. Other research has identi ed this belief in "doppelganger illnesses" where traditional illnesses simply resemble Western diseases (Pascoe et al, 2013;Feldman et al, 2021;Nicolini, 2022). In this sense, HIV is considered to be a Western illness, but there are also traditional illnesses that mimic its symptomology, thereby meriting the term doppelganger.…”