PHA-Exchange> AIDS In Africa Mostly Caused By Unprotected Sex, Study Says

[Claudio]

From: "Dr Rana Jawad Asghar" <jawad at alumni.washington.edu>
http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040206/449_12859.asp
> Friday, February 6, 2004
> 
> Experts from the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS and the Word
> Health Organization published an article in this week's edition
> of The Lancet medical journal rejecting the theory that the pri-
> mary means of HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa is unsafe
> injections. Epidemiological evidence shows that the major mode
> of HIV transmission in the region continues to be sexual trans-
> mission.
> 
> However, the organizations agreed that the risk of unsafe injec-
> tions should be reduced and suggested that data be improved for
> the identification of such risks (UNAIDS Web site, Feb. 6).
> 
> According to the Washington Post, programs that teach safe sex
> and the use of condoms were vindicated by the report's conclu-
> sion that heterosexual sex accounts for as much as 90 percent of
> adult HIV/AIDS cases in Africa. UNAIDS reported that approxi-
> mately 26.6 million people in sub-Saharan African were living
> with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2003.
> 
> One year ago, David Gisselquist, a U.S.-based consultant, said
> that according to his analysis, dirty needles caused as much as
> 40 percent of adult HIV/AIDS cases in sub-Saharan Africa (Wash-
> ington Post, Feb. 6). While UNAIDS and the WHO did not dispute
> the danger of unsafe injections, they felt that such an emphasis
> would minimize the significance of sexual transmission and pos-
> sibly have a negative effect on efforts to control the transmis-
> sion of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.
> 
> Moreover, the article in The Lancet reported that sexual behav-
> ior statistics were most likely underestimated in sub-Saharan
> Africa, with much behavior going unreported. In one study, 23
> percent of 980 girls and women between the ages of 15 and 24 who
> said they never had sex were infected with HIV, yet 16 percent
> of 958 among this group were also pregnant.
> 
> In South Africa, a country that has the most highly developed
> health care systems in sub-Saharan Africa and a blood-
> transfusion system on par with developed countries, the HIV/AIDS
> epidemic is rampant. This further disproves Gisselquist's theory
> that unsafe injections are the primary mode of HIV transmission,
> the authors said (The Lancet, Feb. 7).
>