I suspect that there are more notions that feel intuitively
true, but aren't in AID$ world.

Alex

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2730879520070628?pageNumber=1

Wars don't fuel African HIV crisis: study
By Will Dunham
Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:43PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - War, refugee crises and large-scale rape of women in sub-Saharan African
nations have not spawned higher HIV infection rates in this region hard hit by AIDS, according to a
study contradicting a common belief.

Writing in the Lancet medical journal on Thursday, researchers said they tracked HIV infection rates
in seven sub-Saharan nations beset by conflict -- Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda,
Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.

Of the 40 million people worldwide infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS,
about 25 million are in the poor African countries south of the Sahara.

Running counter to a notion advanced by some experts that violence fuels the spread of HIV, the
study found no evidence that infection rates rose in these nations during conflicts.

The study also found that the large numbers of refugees displaced by war have not multiplied HIV in
the places to which they have fled, and that large-scale rapes during conflicts, while heinous, have
not increased overall HIV rates.

"Assumptions that make intuitive sense should be properly researched before being propagated as
fact," said lead researcher Dr. Paul Spiegel, chief of the public health and HIV section for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Spiegel noted that HIV infection rates may increase in areas affected by conflict, but not to the
same magnitude as similar regions not engulfed in war.

"In the seven countries we examined -- again, this may not apply to all countries that experience
conflict -- the conflict appeared to keep the level of HIV infection lower than surrounding
countries or in other parts of the same country which were not in conflict," Spiegel said by e-mail.

"Every case of rape is abhorrent and must be cared for properly," Spiegel added. "At the individual
level, the person is at risk of becoming infected with HIV. However, given simple epidemiology, this
may not translate into an overall increase in HIV prevalence at the country level."

DISRUPTED HABITS

Under ordinary circumstances, he said, men may leave their families to work in urban areas, have sex
with HIV-infected prostitutes and then return home only to infect their wives, or have numerous
concurrent sex partners.

But because war limits people's mobility within countries, such transmission patterns may be
disrupted, Spiegel said.

Some nongovernmental organizations have asserted that HIV infection rates are worsened in conflict
zones.

A 2002 report by the group Save the Children titled "HIV and conflict: a double emergency," stated,
"In war, HIV/AIDS spreads rapidly as a result of sexual bartering, sexual violence, low awareness
about HIV, and the breakdown of vital services in health and education."

Spiegel said such claims may stem from incorrect interpretation of data or inadequate study methods.

But Gopa Kumar Nair, Save the Children's HIV and AIDS adviser, said the data underpinning the Lancet
study may not sufficiently reflect the reality on the ground.

"Our experience from the field clearly shows that there is a huge link between vulnerability to HIV
and conflict. We have seen community-based health systems breaking down," he said in a telephone
interview.

Separately, the Global HIV Prevention Working Group, which is backed in part by the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, called for increased international support for AIDS prevention efforts with the
aim of averting 30 million of the 60 million HIV infections expected to occur by 2015.