汚い注射針は乱交よりも危険

先ずは先月末のInternational Herald Tribuneに載ったAPの記事;


Global sex survey dispels misconceptions

The Associated Press
Published: October 31, 2006



LONDON: In the first comprehensive global study of sexual behavior, British researchers found that people aren't losing their virginity at ever younger ages, married people have the most sex, and there is no firm link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases.

The study was published Wednesday as part of a series on sexual and reproductive health by the British medical journal, The Lancet. Professor Kaye Wellings of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines and her colleagues analyzed data from 59 countries worldwide.

Experts say data gleaned from the study will be useful not only in dispelling popular myths about sexual behavior, but in shaping policies that will help improve sexual health across the world. Researchers looked at previously published studies on sexual behaviour in the last decade. They also used data from national governments worldwide. Wellings noted that since the survey results were based on self-reporting, they could be susceptible to error.

Wellings said she was surprised by some of the survey's results.



"We did have some of our preconceptions dashed," she said, explaining that they had expected to find the most promiscuous behavior in regions like Africa with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. That was not the case, as multiple partners were more commonly reported in industrialized countries where the incidence of such diseases was relatively low.

"There's a misperception that there's a great deal of promiscuity in Africa, which is one of the potential reasons for HIV/AIDS spreading so rapidly," said Dr. Paul van Look, director of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organization, who was unconnected to the study. "But that view is not supported by the evidence."

Wellings says that implies that promiscuity may be less important than factors such as poverty and education - especially in the encouragement of condom use - in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. The survey found that single men and women in Africa were fairly sexually inactive: only two thirds of them reported recent sexual activity, compared with three quarters of their counterparts in developed countries.

The study also found that contrary to popular belief, sexual activity is not starting any earlier than commonly believed. Nearly everywhere, men and women have their first sexual experiences in their late teens (aged 15-19 years), with generally younger ages for women than for men.

Still, there are considerable discrepancies across countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, men and women tend to lose their virginity at ages 16.5 and 17.5 respectively. In comparison, men and women in Indonesia waited until they were 24.5 and 18.5 respectively before crossing the sexual threshold.

Researchers also found that married people have the most sex, and that there has been a gradual shift to delay marriage, even in developing countries.

While that has meant a predictable rise in the rates of premarital sex, experts say this doesn't necessarily translate into more dangerous behavior.

In some instances, married women may be at more risk than single women.

"A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances than a married woman," says van Look, who points out that married women in Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent prostitutes.

There is much greater equality between women and men with regard to the number of sexual partners in rich countries than in poor countries, the study found. For example, men and women in Australia, Britain, France and the US tend to have an almost equal number of sexual partners. In contrast, in Cameroon, Haiti, and Kenya, men tend to have multiple partners while women tend only to have one. This imbalance has significant public health implications. "In countries where women are beholden to their male partners, they are likely not to have the power to request condom use, and they probably won't know about their husbands' transgressions," said Wellings.

Because of the diversity of sexual habits worldwide, Wellings warns that no single approach to sexual health will work everywhere. "There are very different economic, religious and social rules governing sexual conduct across the world," Wellings said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/01/europe/EU_MED_Sex_Study.php

Washington Times*1には、HIVの感染に関する”promiscuity may be less important than factors such as poverty and education”という側面に焦点を当てた記事が掲載されている;

Dirty needles bigger HIV threat than unsafe sex
By Anju S. Bawa
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 1, 2006

A study by Britain's Royal Society of Medicine found that pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to get HIV/AIDS from a tetanus shot with a dirty needle than from unsafe sex, reopening a debate over the best way to combat the spread of the disease.
The study, published in the November issue of the society's International Journal of STD & AIDS, found that pregnant women who received the neonatal tetanus-toxoid shot as a preventative measure were almost twice as likely to subsequently test positive for HIV as those who did not receive the injection.
Injections and other such puncture treatments -- frequently conducted with reused or improperly sterilized needles -- are the main cause of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, not heterosexual sex with multiple partners, the studies authors reported.
One of those authors, Stuart Brody, said in a telephone interview that this and earlier studies provide "mounting evidence" that health organizations are "misguided" in thinking their strategy of promoting safe sex would by itself curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"This is tremendously significant." said Mr. Brody, a senior researcher at the University of Paisley in Scotland.
He co-authored the study with Eva Deuchert of the University of Freiburg in Germany.
"Healthy, pregnant women are being put at risk for HIV when receiving unsafe health care, for themselves and their unborn child," he said. "Injections are given widely and regularly in sub-Saharan Africa and are a significant factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS."
Other researchers questioned the Royal Society's findings.
George Schmid, a senior researcher from the HIV/AIDS department of the World Health Organization in Geneva, said by e-mail that "the issue of unsafe injections causing HIV infection was examined in detail two years ago."
"While an exact proportion of infections transmitted by unsafe injections is difficult to determine globally, it is less than 5 percent, and very likely considerably less," said Dr. Schmid, who published his findings on the earlier studies in the Lancet, a leading British medical journal.
"Any infections that are transmitted via unsafe health care practices are unacceptable," he said. "Nevertheless, the major cause of HIV infection, globally and in Kenya, is unsafe sex, and that is where the emphasis and resources must remain."
Earlier Royal Society studies, including some reported in the same journal in March 2003, had also found that unsafe health care, particularly injections, were the primary cause of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Leading HIV/AIDS relief organizations met in Geneva that year to discuss those findings, which they refuted.
Other researchers said the society had identified a major problem, regardless of how many people were infected by dirty needles.
"Even if unclean injections were the cause of only a small percentage of HIV cases, it is a huge problem," said Amir Attaran, who studies population health and global development policy at the University of Ottawa in Canada.
Health organizations that distribute syringes are saving only pennies per syringe by using types that can be reused, he said.
"If they are doing that, they are killing people."
The Royal Society study analyzed data from the 2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 1,620 pregnant women who did not report being HIV-positive before the tetanus shot.
"Many women had HIV after only one shot," said Mr. Brody, who recommended that health care organizations exclusively use syringes that can be used only once.
"A study in Uganda showed clear improvement with the use of safe needles," Mr. Brody said. "It is the easiest aspect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to fix."
But Dr. Schmid questioned the study's design and said the authors had parsed its data to reach a generalized conclusion.
"Our UNICEF colleagues tell us that [single-use syringes] became widely used in 2001. In Kenya, in 2002, there was a countrywide tetanus-toxoid campaign, conducted completely with safe syringes. Thus, during at least part of the time period covered by the Brody paper, only safe injections were being used in public programs."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20061031-100119-4560r

記事では、亜細亜などの買春についてのダブル・スタンダードが存在する社会では、独身女性よりも既婚女性の方がHIVに関してリスキーであるという指摘があるが、少し前に米国で新たなハイ・リスク・グループが注目されているという記事を読んだことがある。それは高齢者である。特に配偶者を失った人々同士のナンパ。高齢者同士のセックスでは(避妊を考慮する必要がないので)コンドームを用いるということは殆どない*2
この英国のグループによるサーヴェイだが、最近性道徳が乱れているとお嘆きの方々にとっては、がっかりというべきかそれとも一安心というべきか。

*1:これって、統一さん系?

*2:Rose GEORGE “Meet the Condom Grandma” nvr July 21 2006, pp.30-31, originally appeared in The Independent.