LISBON, Aug 19 (AFP) - Infections from a drug-resistant strain of HIV which had previously been found almost exclusively in Africa are rising sharply in Portugal, a new study showed.
Laboratory testing of blood samples from 63 newly infected HIV carriers at a Lisbon hospital revealed 54 percent were infected with the sub-type G strain of the virus, daily "Publico" said on Monday.
Only 23 percent of the blood samples were infected with the sub-type B strain, which predominates in all western European countries.
The study also found that 62 percent of the 70 pregnant women who had been diagnosed with HIV in southern Portugal in 2001 were found to be infected with the sub-type G strain of the virus.
This strain is resistant to at least two of the most powerful drugs used to combat HIV and is believed to spread more easily.
"If, as I fear, it is transmitted more easily than sub-type B, the entire stategy in the fight against AIDS needs to be re-thought and infection estimates need to be revised upwards," Ricardo Camacho, the researcher who led the study, told Publico.
Portugal already has the highest rate of HIV infection in the EU. In 2000 there were 104.2 cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, for every one million residents, according to EU statistics office Eurostat.
The EU average is just under 25 cases of HIV per million residents.
This infection record appears to be getting worse. Health departments detected 1,074 new cases of HIV/AIDS during the first six months of 2002, a 34 percent increase over the same period last year.
UNAIDS, the UN agency coordinating the global fight against the disease, estimates Portugal will have 27,000 carriers of the virus in 2002.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) first began appearing in Portugal in 1983.
More than half -- 51 percent -- of all reported cases of AIDS since the emergence of the disease that year and March of 2002 were detected among intravenous drug users, according to health ministry figures.
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