The perfect storm model that was elaborated for the HIV-1M pandemic has also been used to explain the emergence of HIV-2, a second human immunodeficiency virus-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV-AIDS) that became an epidemic in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. The use of this model creates epidemiological generalizations, ecological oversimplifications and historical misunderstandings as its assumptions—an urban center with explosive population growth, a high level of commercial sex and a surge in STDs, a network of mechanical transport and country-wide, en masse mobile campaigns—are absent from the historical record. This model fails to explain how the HIV-2 epidemic actually came about. This is the first study to conduct an exhaustive examination of sociohistorical contextual developments and align them with environmental, virological and epidemiological data. The interdisciplinary dialogue indicates that the emergence of the HIV-2 epidemic piggybacked on local sociopolitical transformations. The war’s indirect effects on ecological relations, mobility and sociability were acute in rural areas and are a key to the HIV-2 epidemic. This setting had the natural host of the virus, the population numbers, the mobility trends and the use of technology on a scale needed to foster viral adaptation and amplification. The present analysis suggests new reflections on the processes of zoonotic spillovers and disease emergence.

The aim of the paper is to systematize documental and chronological data about Pestis secunda, first plague outbreak that hit Europe after the famous Black Death, looking for an approximate chronology of the event in Portugal. A little more than a decade after its predecessor, this epidemic proved that the disease would become recurrent, and some exceptional sources allow us to dispute that the silence of the majority of the surviving documents means a minor impact in the lives of those who survived it.

In 1988, the remote mining town of Dundo, in Lunda-Norte, Angola, displayed an anomalously high HIV-1 prevalence of 14.2%, despite the absence of recognised epidemic drivers. Archival and epidemiological evidence suggests that colonial medical interventions, rather than sexual transmission alone, were central to the early amplification of the virus. Under the Companhia de Diamantes de Angola (Diamang), a vast corporate health system promoted extensive use of injections and blood transfusions, relying on reusable equipment and limited sterilization. Quantitative data on transfusion ratios and injection frequencies, combined with evidence of rising tuberculosis, anaemia, and vitamin deficiencies, indicate conditions conducive to iatrogenic spread. By integrating epidemiological, virological, and socio-historical perspectives, the study develops a biosocial framework to reinterpret early HIV transmission dynamics. The findings challenge prevailing “urban-centric” explanations of epidemic emergence and highlight how colonial infrastructures, labour regimes, and biomedical technologies inadvertently created new pathways for viral circulation. Understanding these histories broadens current debates on the socio-political roots of epidemics and the long-term legacies of colonial medicine in shaping global health vulnerabilities.