Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - September 15, 1999
The 1997-98 study was designed to examine the striking differences in the speed at which HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was spreading in Africa. It found HIV infection rates of 15 percent to 23 percent among girls 15 to 19 years old, 26-40 percent among men 25 and older and 3-4 percent among boys 15 to 19.
"The unavoidable conclusion is that girls are getting infected not by boys their own age but by older men," said Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS.
"Young lives are being cut short through sex, which all too often is forced, coerced or `bought' with sugar-daddy gifts," said investigator Maina Kahindo of the Kenya National AIDS/Sexually Transmitted Diseases Control Program.
"Social pressure must be put on men to stop seeking out younger sex partners. Cross-generational sex is helping to drive the HIV epidemic," Kahindo said.
The study was conducted in the towns of Kisumu in Kenya and Ndola in Zambia, where AIDS is prevalent, and the towns of Cotonou in Benin and Yaounde in Cameroon, where the incidence of AIDS is low.
It involved a random sample of 1,000 men and 1,000 women in each of the towns. Additionally, 300 prostitutes in each town were studied.
Michel Carael, head of prevention at UNAIDS, said men reported low condom use and considerably risky behavior in the four towns, and HIV rates of 3-8 percent were seen even in the so-called low-prevalence sites.
He said the research findings did not necessarily mean that AIDS programs were on the wrong track and countries should instead increase prevention measures.
The researchers also linked the high rates of HIV to an absence of circumcision in men and evidence of current or previous sexually transmitted diseases, especially syphilis and genital herpes.
The study did not point to any new avenues for prevention.
"When almost a quarter of teenage girls have HIV and when close to half of them carry the virus that causes genital herpes, the only possible explanation is that they are becoming infected during their first few exposures to sex--maybe even their first," Carael said.
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