It is no secret that the spread of HIV/AIDS is aggravated by war, dislocation, migrations, violence, poverty and suspicion of the West. While each of these often has tragic impact on individuals, they are social/cultural phenomena. Many of the reasons individuals do not do more to protect themselves from the spread of HIV or seek treatment once infection has occurred are due to misinformation, myth, mores, politics, pseudoscience and denial. These are, at best, social psychological in effect. This paper suggests that socio-political issues and approaches are necessary to allow long-term successes in dealing with the individual-level tragedy of HIV/AIDS in Africa.