Burma spreads AIDS in Asia: study

By Evelyn Leopold in New York, July 19, 2005.
From: Reuters

HEROIN users and prostitutes in Burma have spread HIV, the virus
that causes AIDS, through large parts of Asia, according to a
Council on Foreign Relations study.

The use of so-called genetic fingerprinting now allows scientists to
identify changes in the evolution of the virus and thereby dispute
accusations, such as the one Libya made against Bulgarian nurses,
that one group or another was spreading the virus.

"With the exception of one serious outbreak in China, virtually all
the strains of HIV now circulating in Asia – from Manipur, India,
all the way to Vietnam, from mid-China all the way down to
Indonesia, come from a single country," Laurie Garrett, author of
the 67-page report, told a news conference.

"Several research teams have proven that these various HIV strains
can be tracked along four major routes, all originating in Burma,"
she said.

The highest infection rates are among prostitutes and heroin users
in Burma, ranked as the world's top opium producer until 2003 when
Afghanistan moved to first place.

"Burma is a failed state, rife with civil war and rival gangs of
drug, gem and sex-slave smugglers," the report, HIV and National
Security: Where Are The Links?, says.

Ms Garrett said the new technology, known as molecular epidemiology,
could prevent accusations of who spread the epidemic. For example, a
year ago, India charged that "promiscuous Pakistanis" spread HIV in
Kashmir.

More serious is Libya's jailing in 1999 of five Bulgarian nurses and
a Palestinian doctor, accused of deliberately infecting 426 children
with HIV. Bulgaria countered that Libya failed to screen its blood
transfusion supplies.

"Were the Libyan government willing to comply, a study of the HIV
strains found in the 426 infected children might offer proof of
their origin," Ms Garrett's report says.

Using genetic technics, researchers have also proved that the
rapidly growing HIV epidemic in the former Soviet Union – Russia,
Ukraine and the Baltic states – appears to stem from one strain
spread by drug users nearly a decade ago.

"Nearly all of the HIV viruses circulating in that region...closely
match one another genetically, were introduced into the area in 1996-
97 and are being spread through injection by drug users," Ms Garrett
writes.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15979377-23109,00.html
__________________

Laurie Garrett is the Senior Fellow of Global Health at the US Council on
Foreign Relations. Tel: 212-434-9749
E-mail: srosenstein@...

http://www.cfr.org/bio.php?id=1781