Let's consider this one thing first: a 1% infection rate in low-risk groups is by no means negligible. It's low, but it isn't negligible, and it is an indication that AIDS has spread into those so-called low-risk groups.
Now, let's look at this from a policy-maker's perspective. We have a disease which is asymptomatic for years and spreads during this period. We have a disease where infection is easy to fight but once infection occurs it is invariably fatal. You have what is essentially a slam-dunk. They *have* to go ahead and fight HIV before a higher percentage within the general population is infected.
This is difficult because HIV is asymptomatic in most people for several years following infection. If polio or smallpox were present to this degree, even if they were no more virulent than HIV (which is not very virulent at all), it would be obvious that they were present and there would be public outcry.
Today, we see those people with AIDS who were infected five years ago. In the eighties, there were considerably fewer people with AIDS (especially since they had short life expectancies in the absence of effective treatment) than those who were infected with HIV. So there was no immediate public outcry, or it was restricted to those who were at high risk for infection with HIV.
Marco
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> Marco Anglesio | Chance favours <
> mpa at the-wire.com | the prepared mind <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa | --Louis Pasteur <
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