Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1985. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - November 8, 1985
* They have a common problem, one that no country will admit to individually. The extent of the problem seems to vary from country to country. In Kigali, Rwanda, and in Kinshasa, Zaire, AIDS is clearly a major public health problem. Little is known about the extent of AIDS in neighboring Burundi and Congo.
* There is an urgent need to develop effective educational materials, in perhaps a score of languages, about sexual and other practices, that must reach Africans living in cities as well as those in deserts, jungles and other remote areas. "Developing educational material is the biggest challenge we have had at W.H.O.," Dr. Assaad said, "because many of the practices have deep religious and traditional significance." Also polygamy without wedding rings is a widespread practice in Africa, where men consider it a status symbol to be able to afford several wives or mistresses. Health officials are hoping that the ubiquitous transistor radio will become apowerful education weapon.
* They will begin training Africans to do laboratory tests so that AIDS-contaminated-blood can be detected and eliminated from the system before transfusions are given to patients. Such efforts, however, would take years before they can result in a safe blood supply.
* They will work to create a hospital surveillance system to determine the extent of AIDS in central Africa. Most African countries lack effective health-care reporting systems and the attempt to set up one for AIDS would be designed to detect trends rather than precise case counts. The AIDS system would be predicated on one used in some central African countries to indicate the prevalence of viruses that cause infections characterized by severe bleeding.
Dr. Assaad said he was optimistic that African countries represented at the meeting would begin to formally report on AIDS by the end of this year.
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