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misc.health.aids, soc.culture.south-africa

Great article in The Boston Globe.

Read it, at:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/06/20/estimates_on_hiv_called_too
_high/

Estimates on HIV called too high
New data cut rates for many nations
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff  |  June 20, 2004

PRETORIA -- Estimates of the number of people with the
AIDS virus have been dramatically overstated in many
countries because of errors in statistical models and a possible
undetected decline in the pandemic, according to new data
and specialists on the disease.

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[from page 3, the summation of the article's findings, at:]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/06/20/estimates_on_hiv_called_too
_high?pg=3

Chin said he thinks the global rate is inflated by 25 percent
to 40 percent, while two US health officials working on AIDS
said they think the global numbers may be 50 percent inflated.
The two spoke on condition of anonymity.

Among their reasons:

In a slum of the Chennai district in India, a high-risk area for
transmission of HIV because of prostitutes and drug users, a
recent household survey found 0.2 percent HIV prevalence.
The nationwide rate is 0.8 percent, or 4 million people. Ghys
acknowledged: "It's difficult to say what is going on in India.
In India, there's always a great deal of uncertainty in those
estimates. Are we sure it's 0.8 percent? The honest answer
is no, we are not sure."

A recent household survey in Burkina Faso put the national
estimate at 1.9 percent; the UN's most recent estimate puts
the rate at 7 percent. In Africa, other recent surveys showing
significantly lower rates have been in Zambia, South Africa,
Mali, and Ghana. Rates also were lowered by a third in
Zimbabwe because of significant numbers of faulty HIV tests.

Several years ago, UNAIDS estimated that up to 60 percent
of the Angolan military was HIV positive. Dr. Richard Shaffer,
head of the US Department of Defense's HIV/AIDS Prevention
Program, said in an interview the estimate was "nowhere near
close to that. It's 6 to 7 percent. They based the earlier number
on a small sample, which included people outside the military,
and extrapolated that to the military as a whole."

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, HIV prevalence in adults aged
15 to 49 in Uganda was estimated as high as 30 percent; now HIV
prevalence is estimated at 5 percent. But now many no longer
believe the 30 percent figure, raising questions about the true impact
of Uganda's much-touted prevention program. Said Ghys: "If we
recast our estimates, it wasn't 30 percent, it was maybe 22 or
something."

Earlier this year, the US government announced its first substantial
grants in President Bush's multibillion-dollar plan to fight AIDS. The
news release cited a 15 percent HIV prevalence rate in Kenya and
a 6 percent rate in Haiti, even though US-funded surveys in both
countries had recently concluded that the rate was at least half
those figures.