HIV in Africa question

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Thu Jul 4 11:34:56 PDT 2002



>From: "ChrisD(RJ)" <chrisd at russiajournal.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: "'lbo-talk at lists.panix.com'" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: RE: HIV in Africa question
>Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 09:38:33 +0400
>
>Are you refering to HIV rates in Africa or to Africans in Russia getting
>beaten up? I meant the latter.
>
>How are HIV rates in Africa determined? I find it hard to imagine that
>there
>is mass HIV testing in Zambia. I also find it hard to imagine just off the
>top of my head that you could have 40% of a population infected with HIV
>just through genital sex -- though, when I worked for an HIV-research firm
>in the States, I did learn that some peculiarities of sexual practices in
>Sub-Saharan Africa may help account for this, e.g. the practice of women
>drying out their vaginas before intercourse, making it easier for tissues
>to
>get torn. Catching HIV through regular genital sex is not easy, especially
>if you are male. It has something like a 2% transmission rate, even without
>a condom.

Not being an epidemiologist and not having familiarized myself even superficially with how such things are determined, I don't know the answers to these questions. Presumably there is some sampling technique involved. But the folks at WHO are the World Bank _are_ epidemiologists, and I defer to their expertise. I can't even imagine why they'd lie. I'll take their word over anecdotal evidence from random stangers I met in Moscow. jks


>
>Chris Doss
>The Russia Journal
>------------------
>Believe them or believe WHO. jks
>
>
> >From: "ChrisD(RJ)" <chrisd at russiajournal.com>
> >Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> >To: "'lbo-talk at lists.panix.com'" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
> >Subject: RE: HIV in Africa question
> >Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 20:01:25 +0400
> >
> >
> >Just reporting what Africans in Russia tell me. They say the situation is
> >not even comparable.
> >
> >Chris Doss
> >The Russia Journal

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