Adam.Selene@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Adam Selene) (07/18/89)
# 196 HET AIDS RATE STEADY, PROFILE CHANGES
REF: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATE: 23 JUNE 1989
[A BACKROOM REPRINT]
By ROBERT BYRD Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA - The proportion of AIDS cases transmitted through heterosexual
contact continues to hold steady at around 4 percent, according to federal
researchers.
The Centers for Disease Control reported Thursday that heterosexual
transmission of AIDS accounts for 4,305, or 4.4 percent, of the total of
97,193 AIDS cases in the United States.
Although the percentage of heterosexual cases "has remained relatively
stable" in recent years, the characteristics of that group are changing,
the Atlanta-based agency said, citing an analysis of the 3,962 adults with
heterosexual cases of AIDS through March 1989.
Prior to 1985, more than half the heterosexual AIDS cases in the United
States occurred in people born in other countries, such as some African
nations, where heterosexual transmission is the chief way AIDS is spread.
In the United States, most cases are linked to homosexual contact.
But since 1985, the majority of heterosexual cases have been in people who
had sexual contact with a person either infected with human
immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, or at high risk of infection,
such as an abuser of injectable drugs or a bisexual, the CDC said.
Through March of this year, 65 percent of the reported heterosexual AIDS
cases occurred in people who had sex with a high-risk partner, the report
said. The majority of those partners were drug users.
Among the 4,305 heterosexual-transmission AIDS patients, 2,499, or 58
percent, are women. Women account for only 9 percent of all AIDS patients.
"An appreciable proportion of HIV infection among women in the United
States is acquired through heterosexual contact," the CDC said in its
weekly report. Because AIDS infections are more prevalent in men, "a woman
is more likely than a man to have an infected heterosexual partner."
The CDC noted that the actual number of heterosexual AIDS cases may be
higher than 4,305. Nearly 3,000 more AIDS patients who are classified
either as bisexual males, intravenous drug abusers or hemophiliacs also
reported heterosexual contact with an AIDS-risk person.
"Some of these persons may have acquired HIV through heterosexual contact
rather than through these other routes," the CDC said.
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