Nosocomial HIV Transmission in Africa

Via Gates of Vienna: Medilinks has an October 2002 article from the International Journal of STD & AIDS on HIV infections in sub-Sahara Africa not explained by sexual or vertical transmission.

An expanding body of evidence challenges the conventional hypothesis that sexual transmission is responsible for more than 90% of adult HIV infections in Africa. Differences in epidemic trajectories across Africa do not correspond to differences in sexual behavior. Studies among African couples find low rates of heterosexual transmission, as in developed countries. Many studies report HIV infections in African adults with no sexual exposure to HIV and in children with HIV-negative mothers. Unexplained high rates of HIV incidence have been observed in African women during antenatal and postpartum periods. Many studies show 20%-40% of HIV infections in African adults associated with injections (though direction of causation is unknown). These and other findings that challenge the conventional hypothesis point to the possibility that HIV transmission through unsafe medical care may be an important factor in Africa's HIV epidemic.

Although the authors of the article dance around the issue, the primary cause of the HIV epidemic in Africa appears to be the reuse of hypodermic needles. Both Marburg and Ebola have been spread nosocomially in Africa, but in that case the evidence is so immediate and bloody that no one questions it.

PlagueBlog recommends against seeking medical care in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ocular Syphilis

Via ProMED-mail: The West Australian reports on a resurgence of ocular inflammation caused by untreated syphilis infections:

Homosexual men are most commonly affected, with infectious disease experts predicting the epidemic will spread through gay communities nationwide with time.
Dr Amaratunge says eye-related syphilis is relatively uncommon, with 15 cases expected in Victoria this year, but numbers are rising fast.
Fewer than 10 per cent of people who catch the disease develop symptoms in their eyes, causing redness, pain, light sensitivity and loss of vision.
But in those who do, 25 per cent will have no other symptoms of the syphilis and therefore often have no idea they have the debilitating condition.

Give It To Everybody

The FUMP has a funny STD song: Give It To Everybody by Sudden Death, It's an explicit parody of "All That I Need" by Busta Rhymes. Here's the tamest sample of the lyrics I could find:

Julie-Anne just gave it to Bob, who did Jill and Jean,
who shared it with me, and now you got it (repeat)
Anthony just gave it to me, I gave it to you
You spread it around, so we all got it (repeat)

Murder Most Contagious

CTV reports on a man in Ontario charged with two counts of first-degree murder for transmitting HIV to two women who have since died.

That precedent was set in 1998, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a B.C. man was who failed to disclose his HIV-positive status before having consensual sex with two women was nevertheless guilty of aggravated assault.
When the two women died, that meant the assault charges were automatically bumped up to first-degree murder.

The Bard and the Pox

Steve Baragona of the Infectious Diseases Society of America argues against a recent article in Did Shakespeare have Syphilis?