Indian researchers believe sexual habits limit spread of HIV

[Guest guest]

Indian researchers believe sexual habits limit spread of HIV

By Ken Moritsugu. Knight Ridder Newspapers

NEW DELHI - India seemed to have all the ingredients for an Africa-

like AIDS explosion: relatively low condom use, an uneven public

health system and a natural client base for prostitution - a large

population of truckers and migrant workers.

But the worst fears of experts never panned out.

What they overlooked was the apparently crucial importance of one

factor: Indian women often don't have sex partners outside their

marriage.

HIV did sweep through the ranks of sex workers. They passed the

virus to their customers, who in turn infected their wives. But then

the disease came to a halt.

" That's sort of a dead end, because multi-partner sex among women is

not very high, " said Dr. Rajesh Kumar, head of the School of Public

Health at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and

Research in Chandigarh, India.

Only 2 percent of Indian women reported having sex with people other

than their husbands in the past year, according to a government

survey.

Kumar was the lead author of a study, published last month in The

Lancet, that found a significant decline in new infections in four

Indian states hit hard by AIDS. Those results suggested new

infections might be peaking nationwide.

That's not to say that AIDS is no longer a problem. HIV is still

spreading, and in a country as large as India, the estimated 1

percent infection rate translates to 5.2 million people - more than

10 percent of the global total.

The challenge in India, said Dr. del Prado, deputy country

coordinator for the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS, is to guard

against localized outbreaks across such a large and diverse country.

The good news is that the more-than-two-decade-long, multibillion-

dollar global prevention effort finally is bearing fruit. Kumar said

studies show that increased condom use contributed to the drop in

new infections.

" For the first time ever ... I believe that we have a real potential

to get ahead of this epidemic, " Piot, executive director of

the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS, said in a speech in Washington

in March.

" For me, " said del Prado, " it means that 21 years of hard work is

finally paying off. "

Moritsugu is a Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondent

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