AFRO-NETS> Questions Prompt Review of Dirty Needles' Role in African HIV/AIDS Infections

[Dieter Neuvians MD <neuvians@mweb.co.za>]

Questions Prompt Review of Dirty Needles' Role in African HIV/AIDS Infections
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Source UNWire:
http://www.unwire.org/unwire/util/category_search.asp?objCat=health
 
Questions about what percentage of Africa's HIV infections are caused 
by dirty needles has prompted U.S. Health and Human Services Secre-
tary Tommy Thompson -- who is also the chairman of the Global Fund to 
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- to order a review of all re-
search linking HIV/AIDS and medical injections, Associated Press re-
ported yesterday. The review could affect how funding from the $15 
billion U.S. initiative to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean 
is distributed, AP reported.
 
A report by a researcher at the World Health Organization, Yvan 
Hutin, dated Dec. 19, 2002, lists four studies finding that dirty 
needles cause 8, 15, 41 and 45 percent of HIV exposures in sub-
Saharan Africa. Hutin concluded that the WHO's official estimate that 
only 2.5 percent of Africa's HIV cases are transmitted by dirty nee-
dles is too low. Hutin said in the report that the various studies 
indicate "that our estimate is conservative." The WHO has long fo-
cused on unsafe sex in its prevention messages in Africa.
 
"We'd all like to see there be no unsafe injections," said WHO De-
partment of HIV/AIDS official George Schmid. "But to begin to place a 
large emphasis on the unsafe injections, which likely would be at the 
expense of resources devoted to unsafe sex, would be an unwise deci-
sion. We need to keep the resources where the problem is."
 
U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who unearthed Hutin's report, 
said that if Congress had thought the transmission rate due to dirty 
needles was higher it would have put much more money into needle edu-
cation and possibly even a needle exchange program.
 
Gary Cohen, president of U.S.-based BD Medical Systems, which manu-
factures syringes that cannot be used more than once, said all of Af-
rica could be supplied with safe syringes for $75 million to $100 
million per year (Jeffrey McMurray, AP, June 9).
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