"AIDS Spreading to Teenage Girls in Parts of Africa"  

Wall Street Journal

A new report has found high rates of HIV infection among teenage girls in parts of Africa and suggests that the girls are contracting the virus from older men. The study, which involved 8,000 men and women in four African towns, found that between 15 percent and 23 percent of the teenage girls in two of the towns were infected with HIV. Comparatively, the infection rate for teenage boys in those towns, located in Kenya and Zambia, was only about 3 percent to 4 percent. The rate of HIV infection for men older than 25 ranged from 26 percent to 40 percent. In response to the new findings, which were presented at the 11th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Zambia, UNAIDS head Peter Piot noted that "the fact that the young women are getting HIV from older men shows us where the problem is, ... [although] it also shows us how very difficult it will be to attack this problem." The study also revealed high rates of sexually transmitted diseases in towns with high rates of HIV infection. The report indicated that one reason for the lower rates of infection in the other two towns, located in Benin and Cameroon, may be because virtually all of the men there are circumcised, unlike most men in the Kenyan and Zambian towns.


"S. Africans Know About AIDS But Spurn Protection"

Fox News Online

A demographic and health survey shows that although 87 percent of South Africans sampled know that condoms could help protect them from HIV, only 22 percent had ever used the prophylactics. In addition, approximately 12 percent of the nearly 5,700 men aged 15 or higher surveyed reported symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases.