THE POLITICS OF HIV

Dr James Chin, former head of the WHO Global Programme on Aids, is critical of current anti-HIV initiatives:

HIV/Aids campaigners are circulating "misconceptions" about who is at risk, a former World Health Organization expert has warned.

Dr Chin says HIV prevalence is low in most populations throughout the world and can be expected to remain low.

He believes this is not because of effective HIV prevention work, but because infection rates are limited by the numbers in groups whose behaviour puts them at high risk.

Dr Chin says it is only in sub-Saharan Africa, where unprotected sex outside marriage is common, that the risk of heterosexual HIV transmission is high.

In other parts of the world, he says HIV is seen only in men who have sex with other men, intravenous drug users and female sex workers.

And he says that, unless the clients or partners of people in these groups also indulge in high-risk behaviour, the virus will not spread.

However Dr Chin says these facts have been "minimised and ignored" by UNAids and Aids activists because it is "politically and socially more acceptable" to say HIV risk behaviours are present in all populations.

Given the slim chance that I'll be having promiscuous sex any time soon, HIV is the least of my worries.