Subject: High HIV Rate Found in Women In Florida District 
Date: Published: 12/10/92 (54 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Health:
    High HIV Rate
    Found in Women
    In Florida District
    ----
    By  Marilyn Chase
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    One in 20 pregnant women at a prenatal clinic in rural Florida
 tested positive for the AIDS virus, a stunningly high infection rate
 that researchers attributed to heterosexual transmission.
    Fueling the high transmission rate of the human immunodeficiency
 virus were several factors, including the increasing incidence of
 syphilis and the use of crack cocaine among residents of the poor
 agricultural community under study.
    The report by researchers from the U. S. Centers for Disease
 Control and Prevention underscores that increasing numbers of AIDS
 victims are women, especially young minority women.
    The researchers interviewed and tested more than 1,000 pregnant
 women who registered for prenatal care at a public health clinic in
 western Palm Beach County, Fla.  Of this group, 5.1% tested positive
 for HIV, with 8.3% of black patients testing positive.
    The rural area includes the town of Belle Glade.  Previously, 3.6%
 of the men and 2.8% of the women in Belle Glade were reported to
 carry the virus.  Those earlier findings led to a brief scare that
 the AIDS virus was being carried by mosquitoes.  The CDC investigated
 and discarded that theory.
    Discussing the new findings, Tedd Ellerbrock, lead author of the
 study, said, "It is the snapshot of the future.  In a high prevalence
 area, if you're having casual sex, it's like gambling with your
 life."  The report, by Dr. Ellerbrock of the CDC, John Witte of the
 Florida State Department of Health and their colleagues, is
 published in this week's issue of the New England Journal of
 Medicine.
    Venereal diseases are fanning the fires of AIDS world-wide,
 because they produce sores that permit entry of the virus.  In the
 U. S., crack cocaine furthers the spread of AIDS by leading to unsafe
 sexual behavior, as well as by luring addicted women into the world
 of prostitution through swaps of their sexual favors for drugs.
    However, researchers undermined an old stereotype by pointing out
 that promiscuity isn't necessary to contract heterosexual AIDS.  
 Fully 21% of infected women in the study had "unremarkable" sexual
 histories, with two to five partners in their lifetime -- a rate
 similar to the majority of college women in a 1989 survey, they
 said.

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