Little Correlation Between HIV and Poverty, Op-Ed Says
While conventional wisdom suggests that HIV is more prevalent in the poorer countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Dr. Nigel O'Farrell, a physician in the Infection and Immunity Unit of Middlesex, England-based Ealing Hospital, writes in a letter to the Lancet that only a "weak" correlation exists between HIV prevalence and gross national product in the region. O'Farrell and other researchers conducted a study of the HIV "antenatal prevalence" and the gross national products of the "capital or major city" of 40 sub-Saharan countries. O'Farrell writes that there is a "weak positive correlation" between these two variables, stating that this correlation is "due to a few countries with high HIV prevalence and high GNP," and it "disappears when the analysis is restricted to [the 32] countries with GNPs lower than $1,000." Moreover, he notes that Botswana and
South Africa have two of the highest GNPs yet also have two of the highest rates of HIV prevalence. The policy implication of these findings, according to O'Farrell, is that the efficacy of using poverty reduction strategies as a way to reduce the spread of HIV should be questioned. He concludes, "Clearly, we must continue to seek to implement HIV prevention interventions that target people at highest risk of HIV as early as possible in the epidemic. Alleviation of poverty alone, however politically acceptable and justifiable, will divert attention away from biological risk factors such as male circumcision status and poor genital hygiene in core groups that may be the determining influences that drive high-prevalence HIV epidemics" (O'Farrell, Lancet, 2/24).
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