Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1989. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Wednesday, October 4, 1989
Dr. Thomas O'Brien, an epidemiologist at the national Centers for Disease Control, said the man, who has not developed AIDS, "is definitely the first case I know of on the West Coast" of infection by HIV-2, which is rare in this country compared with HIV-1, the main AIDS virus.
Until now, only seven cases of HIV-2 infection had been confirmed in the United States -- three in Massachusetts and one each in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Florida and New Jersey -- and three of the patients developed AIDS symptoms, O'Brien said by phone from Atlanta.
"We've identified one individual with whom he had multiple unprotected sexual contacts over a long period of time, and that person has been tested and is not infected with this virus. That is reassuring," said Dr. Peter Kerndt, Los Angeles County's director of AIDS epidemiology.
A second lover also is not infected, but officials expect to locate only two or three more of the 20 to 40 women with whom the man had sex since he moved to Los Angeles in 1979 from the West African nation of Sierra Leone, Kerndt said.
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