Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Monday November 3 11:55 PM EST
They said their findings, based on statistics from the Rome area, probably applied to other big cities such as New York.
Carlo Perucci of the Lazio Region Health Authority and colleagues looked at all new reported cases of HIV infection in their region from 1985 to 1994.
"A changing pattern in the HIV epidemic is emerging, with a shift in the incidence of HIV diagnosis from 'core' high-risk groups (drug injectors) to the large, low-risk (the general population) exposed through heterosexual transmission," they wrote in the American Journal of Public Health.
"This is probably occurring in other areas, e.g large urban centers in the United States with a similar epidemiological situation."
There were 35,000 reports of new HIV infections, 70 percent of them in men, and 70 percent of these men injecting drug users.
"Among women whose exposure category was known, 58.7 percent reported injection drug use," the researchers wrote. "However, this proportion decreased dramatically over time contemporaneously with a comparable increase in heterosexual transmission."
They said more than 60 percent of all women who became HIV infected in 1994 caught it from having sex with a man.
They noted that at the beginning of the epidemic most people assumed that homosexual men were most at risk, and screening programs were aimed at them. They said screening programs should now take into account the new patterns.
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