In Spain, of 519 non-intravenous drug-using (NIVDU) prostitutes tested
between May 1989 and December 1990, only 12 (2.3 per cent) had positive
WB. Some prostitutes had as many as 600 partners a month and the
development of a positive WB was directly related to the practice of anal
intercourse.

The authors also noted: "A more striking and disappointing finding was the
low proportion of prostitutes who used condoms at all times, despite the
several mass-media AIDS prevention campaigns that have been carried out in
Spain." In 1990 and 1992, in two Scottish studies, not one NIVDU
prostitute was found WB positive.

In the 1993 "European working group on HIV infection in female prostitutes
study", only nine (1.2 per cent) of 756 NIVDU prostitutes were found WB
positive. These nine included three with another risk factor (blood
transfusions) but not withstanding, the prevalence of a positive WB among
these prostitutes is the same as that for a population of 89,547 hospital
patients at no known risk for AIDS or HIV infection studied at 26
hospitals in 1988-1989 in the United States (1.3 per cent). Closer to
home, of 53,903 Filipino prostitutes tested between 1985 and 1992, 72
(0.13 per cent) were found positive.

Are these data consistent with "the classic demographic profile of a
sexually transmitted disease"?

One cannot but agree with Zimbabwean scientist Richard Chiruumata that for
one third of heterosexual adults in some central and east African
countries to be, as it is claimed, infected with HIV, "life in these
countries must be one endless orgy".