Newly infected spread half of HIV

[Doondoo]

Half of all new HIV transmissions occur when people are unlikely to know they carry the virus and in some cases, wouldn't test positive for it because they are so newly infected, a Canadian study says.

The study, to be published in the April edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, is one of the first in the world to quantify how many of the newly infected are responsible for spreading the disease to others.

And it raises troubling questions about how to deal with the problem: How can those at high risk be encouraged to come forward and undergo frequent, repeated tests when no one knows who they are? And should those at very high risk of contracting the disease be put on anti-retroviral therapy as a preventive measure?

"From the standpoint of public health, we have a major problem in Canada and North America," study author Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill University AIDS Centre at the Jewish General Hospital, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

". . . One of the things driving this entire epidemic is that people themselves are newly infected and are often the most infectious they will ever be throughout their lives and often not even know it."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070302.wxhiv02/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

[mntleo2]

1. Skewed Policies Also Cause The Spread

For instance, in my state a person who is HIV positive is required to tell potential sex partners they are HIV positive or been exposed to HIV, and if they won't do it the health department is supposed to step in and tell the partner without naming who it is, that they have been exposed. But in reality health departments refuse to do this and the person who is doing the spreading can keep on with what they are doing without being impelled to tell anybody anything. I have noticed that many HIV positive people are in such denial they will hardly believe they are positive much less that they will infect anyone else. So in the end, nobody talks and nobody is protected.

It is sad but true.

Cat in Seattle