Study finds newly infected spread half of HIV/AIDS
Pastor Dale Morgan
Study finds newly infected spread half of HIV/AIDS*
Updated Fri. Mar. 2 2007 9:47 AM ET
CTV
CANADA - A Montreal study suggests half of all new HIV/AIDS
transmissions occur when people don't know they're carrying the fatal virus.
What's more, many occur before carriers would even test positive.
The study is among the first to measure how many newly infected people
are responsible for spreading the disease.
Study author Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill University AIDS
Centre at the Jewish General Hospital, says the study points to one of
the most difficult aspects of stopping the spread of HIV: the fact that
those who are newly infected are often the most infectious and often
don't even know it.
The newly infected are most infectious because the virus is madly
replicating within their system, making millions of copies before their
immune systems respond by making antibodies.
Those going through this process, called seroconversion, can sometimes
experience flu-like symptoms, but others feel no symptoms at all.
It typically takes two to four weeks for a newly infected HIV carrier to
test positive; but many others may not test positive until as long as
six months later.
An estimated 58,000 people in Canada were living with HIV infection,
including AIDS, at the end of 2005. That's an increase of about 16 per
cent from the 2002 estimate of 50,000.
Of those 58,000, only 27 per cent would be unaware of their infection,
according to Public Health Agency of Canada figures.
The McGill study is published in the April edition of the Journal of
Infectious Diseases.
An accompanying editorial states that it is time to evaluate whether
highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) should be used as a form
of prevention in those most at risk of infection.
"HAART is no replacement for enhanced behavioural approaches to reduce
transmission," the editorial says. "It is expensive, and relatively
toxic, and many regions of the world still have not implemented therapy
to many of their infected populations.
"However, we argue that the current focus on increasing HIV diagnoses
through more widespread testing requires a parallel strategy for
minimizing ongoing transmission."
While the drugs are the most potent intervention to treat HIV/ AIDS,
there remains no cure.