IJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Articles 25 and 26 state that officials have the authority
to require AIDS carriers to come for an examination and
treatment, and they can be restricted to certain zones or
prohibited from entering zones. They can also be pro-
hibited from engaging in any activity that could spread
the disease.

“Besides violating people’s rights, these articles will not
achieve anything in controlling AIDS. If this law is
promulgated, people won’t dare have their blood tested
out of fear of this law. Those with AIDS will definitely
not obey this law, because they won’t want to risk being
incarcerated,” said a representative of a private devel-
opment organization.

Articles 27 and 28 stipulate that provincial governors
and the director-general of the Department of Commu-
nicable Disease Control have the authority to detain
AIDS carriers at a welfare center within 60 days for up to
180 days. If there are grounds for detaining them longer
than that, they can request permission from the Appeals
Committee to detain them for up to 60 more days. And
a request can be made to detain them for another 60 days
for a total of 180 days. If the person flees, he or she could
be sentenced to up to 1 year in jail or fined up to 20,000
it.

“In short, a person can be detained for up to 360 days
without a trial. AIDS victims are already suffering a
terrible fate. They should be shown some sympathy and
allowed to live a normal life. They should not be subject
to harsh measures. That will just add to their suffering.
And nothing will improve,” said an opposition represen-
tative.

Besides this, Article 21 states that officials can order
people in high risk groups, such as drug addicts, prosti-
tutes, and sexually promiscuous people, to go for exam-
inations.

“Actually, there are no high-risk groups anymore.
Today, everyone is equally at risk. Focusing on certain
groups is very frightening,” said Nithi leosiwong.

Focusing on certain groups will lead people in general to
think that there is no danger of their contracting this
disease. But the truth is, everyone is equally at risk. This
includes playboys and housewives, who may contract the
disease from their husbands.

What Would Be a More Effective Way To Deal With
is?

“What is necessary is social and cultural understanding
on our part that will give rise to measures that will
motivate people to want to help control this disease. This
includes educating people about how to deal with
patients, both physically and mentally, and with their
relatives. The focus should not be just on frightening
people. It is important to generate feelings of love,” said
Professor Nithi Ieosiwong concerning the importance of
information and data.

EAST ASIA 15

Asecond factor is the mechanism in identifying patients.
The focus must be on doing things voluntarily, including
getting blood tests and so on. And it is important to
maintain confidentiality.

“Tf we focus on getting people to do things voluntarily, it
won’t be necessary to promulgate this law. As for the
good aspects, these can be promulgated as ministry
regulations,” said Professor Nithi.

A third important point concerns medical treatment.
Besides treating AIDS patients, their families and
friends must be treated, too. Thought must be given to
what can be done to make these people happy and to how
they can be of use to society. Fourth, it’s possible to give
people a sense of responsibility if society helps them.
Finally, emphasis must be placed on conducting studies
and trying to understand all dimensions of this disease,
not just the medical dimension.

“I think that because Thai politicians were under the
thumb of the military for so long, now that they have
power, they are used to solving problems by exercising
power. Using raw power by promulgating this law will
not succeed. It will probably take time for politicians to
realize that state power alone cannot solve complex
problems like the AIDS problem,” said Professor Nithi
in conclusion.

TB Incidence Connection With AIDS

90WE0313D Bangkok THAI RAT in Thai
1 Aug 90 p 10

[Text] Dr. Pralom Sakuntanat, the deputy clerk of
Bangkok Metropolitan, Dr. Thira Rammasut, the direc-
tor-general of the Department of Communicable Disease
Control, and Dr. Kowit Wongphanit, the director of the
Department of Health, issued a joint statement on
organizing an Anti-Tuberculosis Week. This will be held
at The Mall Trade Center at Ramkhamhaeng during the
week of 7-14 August. Dr. Pralom said that TB is still the
fourth leading cause of death among Thais, and of all
communicable diseases, TB is the leading killer. The
number of people who contract TB increases every year.
But only about 60 percent of the people who contract TB
come for treatment. The remaining 40 percent do not
seek treatment. This could spread the disease to others.
Thus, Bangkok Metropolitan must take action on this.

Dr. Thira Rammasut, the director-general of the Depart-
ment of Communicable Disease Control, said that about
40 percent of Thailand’s population, or about 20 million
people, have come in contact with the tubercle bacillus.
But because most people have built up an immunity,
only about 1.5 million people have actually contracted
the disease. About 30,000 people come down with this
disease each year. The death rate from TB is about 8 per
100,000 people. Today, the various regions of the
country all have about the same percentage of TB
patients. But it is thought that Bangkok Metropolitan has
the lowest TB rate in the country. Other areas where
incidence is low is in the urban areas of the various


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32 WEST EUROPE

dying of AIDS. Traffic accidents? If one compares it with
traffic accidents, you don’t need to do anything, any-
where.

“The need for research and information is definitely not
less than in the mid-eighties. Back then, one had hope of
finding a vaccine and a treatment. Today it is clear that
we are deceiving ourselves, if we expect something like
that shortly. It could be many years yet.

“Now that 10 percent of the infected are heterosexuals, it
is time for us to take it extremely seriously. There is a
need for diversified, goal-oriented data. This is the
difficult phase that we must now begin to tackle. Making
the issue interesting by showing filmclips and talking
about condoms—that was easy.”

Unindoctrinated School Children

The first AIDS alarm came from the gay communities,
and in 1983-84, the National Association of Gays and
Lesbians was actively organizing education and coun-
seling. In 1985, the Association of County Councils—
with future hospital costs in mind—distributed the first
leaflet to households. At the same time, Minister of the
Interior Britta Schall Holberg continued energetically to
dismiss the problem.

Only after Knud Enggaard had replaced his party col-
league as Minister of the Interior, was the purse opened.

In 1986, large sums were granted for research and edu-
cation. In the spring of 1987, a unanimous parliament
decided that AIDS was an issue that Denmark should
deal with through prevention. In 1987, the massive
campaigns using film and television spots were begun by
the newly organized AIDS Office, led by the dynamic
Lone de Neergaard.

In this period, communities and counties also got
started: all teachers with large classes were given extra
AIDS courses and in every county, local health care
nurses, teachers, and social counselors were trained to be
a network of key persons—volunteer instructors and
facilitators. When they came home from their courses in
1987, they were brimming with good ideas and initia-
tives. In the meantime, the work had halted in many
places. There was no support, either moral or economic.

“The whole educational scheme has fallen apart” says
Lone Meyer, a school doctor in Gundso and Hvalso
communities and key person for AIDS education in
Roskilde county.

“Today I can use the same instructional material in the
ninth grade as I used five years ago. For example, there
are questionnaires with questions like: "Can you be
infected by a kiss?. (Answer: No). For years I couldn’t
use the questionnaires, because the children were so
incredibly well-informed from the newspapers and tele-
vision. Today they can no longer answer the questions.”

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

No Plan

“The worst part is,” says Lone Meyer, “that there is no
plan as to who should be informed, how, or when. Some
don’t get to hear anything, others get to hear so much
that they want to vomit. Who is supposed to plan and
coordinate?

“First it was the Association of County Councils, and
then, the Health Commission, but I haven’t heard any-
thing from them in a long time. It is very frustrating
when you are asked to volunteer, and they don’t back
you up. We had a storefront in Roskilde, which we can’t
use anymore. Our business hours have been transferred
to other organizations. For two years we distributed
condoms and did PR work at the Roskilde festival. Last
year we had a budget of 100,000; this year we get 8,000.”

Recently there has been an indication that the Health
Commission is getting involved once again in AIDS
education. Last month, the AIDS Office finally installed
a new director, who has planned out a strategy for the
coming years. The key persons have been contacted, the
AIDS Office reports.

“Yes,” says Lone Meyer, “it could be that the lack of
support has kindled a realization that education must be
targeted toward the most vulnerable groups. There is
enormous criticism of the big campaigns—why should
everyone learn to use condoms when AIDS was a
problem only for gays and substance abusers?

“But if this is a deliberate down-prioritizing of education
for ordinary people, then, at least, they have to say to us,
who is to do the instructing: "Now we have decided that
school children will no longer be instructed about AIDS.’

“I believe that you must continue to inform everybody—
also in regard to those who are HIV-positive, because
people are afraid to associate with them. I don’t know
how else we can reach drug addicts—maybe the best
chance to educate them is to get them in school, before
they become drug addicts—while they are still regular
people.”

Danes’ Behavior Patterns

But does education really help? No one actually knows.
The National Serum Institute has just started to investi-
gate whether the risk of AIDS has caused Danes to
change their habits.

“During the period when the campaigns were running,
the number of abortions rose,” says Dr. Henrik Zoff-
mann, head physician of the National Serum Institute.
“Nothing suggests that the public, in general, has altered
its behavior.”

“In the course of these years, the sexual behavior in
many gay communities has certainly changed. Yet in
1989, we saw that the number of cases of rectal gonorrhea
in males had risen slightly, and the same was true for



JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

1 Million Believed Infected With HIV

90WE0328A Helsinki HELSINGIN SANOMAT
in Finnish 18 Aug 90 p 2

[Article by David Musoke: “AIDS Spreading Like Wild-
fire in Uganda”—first paragraph is HELSINGIN
SANOMAT introduction]

[Text] The country is now responding openly to the
epidemic and is waging a prevention campaign to change
people’s behavior.

According to doctors and health-care workers, only a few
people in Uganda have changed their sexual behavior,
despite the fact that more and more people are aware of
the danger of immune deficiency, or AIDS.

“If people don’t change their behavior, which exposes
them to infection with HIV, it may still be a long time
before we get to reap the harvest of the anti-AIDS
campaign,” Dr. Sam Okware, the director of the ACP
[expansion unknown] project, established to prevent the
spread of the disease, said.

“A way of curing the immune deficiency or a vaccine to
prevent it must be found soon; otherwise countless
people will die,” Okware went on.

The largest number of confirmed cases of immune
deficiency in Africa is in Uganda. It is one of the few
African countries that have begun to respond openly to
the AIDS epidemic.

A Million Infected

Uganda’s first cases of AIDS were confirmed in 1982.
Since then, over 12,000 people suffering from the disease
have been recorded, and it is estimated that a million
Ugandans have been infected with the HIV virus.

The Ugandan Ministry of Health has received financial
support and material assistance from the World Health
Organization and other United Nations organizations.
The ministry has launched an extensive public informa-
tion campaign in the news media, the object of which is
to prevent the spread of AIDS.

According to medical experts, however, the number of
confirmed cases is doubling at half-year intervals, and
the situation is getting worse.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has made the anti-
immune deficiency campaign the top priority. He has said
that the civil war and political unrest that went on
throughout the past decade provided the opportunity for a
relaxation of moral standards and the spread of AIDS.

On nearly every occasion he has had to speak in the
different parts of the country, the 46-year-old Ugandan
leader has appealed to young people to refrain from
premarital relations.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 9

In June the Ugandan Parliament tried to radically change
people’s behavior by passing a law that prohibits premarital
relations. At the same time, prostitution was made a crime.

Furthermore, the law raised the minimum marriage age
from 14 to 18. Rape of a woman under age 18 results in a
death sentence, and rape of a woman over 18 to a life
sentence.

With the aid of UNICEF, the UN children’s aid fund,
the Ugandan Education Ministry has been conducting a
compulsory education program in elementary and
middle schools that tells children about the AIDS epi-
demic and how they can avoid infection.

Private organizations and religious groups have also
joined the anti-immune-deficiency campaign.

Free Blood Test

Religious leaders are urging couples planning to get married
to be tested for AIDS first to be sure that neither of them has
been infected before they tie the lifelong knot.

The ACP has opened an advice office in downtown
Kampala, the capital, where anyone who suspects he is
infected may go for a free blood test.

An adviser at the support organization for those suf-
fering from AIDS said that it is difficult for Ugandans to
talk about their sex life. This is one reason it is hard to
change their sexual behavior.

He remarked that this is not easy, although, according to
the old saying: “To get rid of an old habit, you have to
start a new one.” “It takes a while for many of our clients
to adjust to the idea.”

Nevertheless, they have no intention of abandoning the
advice office.

“We're doing everything in our power to get everyone
who comes to us to change his behavior. We provide him
with the necessary information and go over his fear and
anxiety with him.”

ZIMBABWE

Statistics Show AIDS Cases Increasing

90WE0290 Harare THE HERALD in English
19 Jul 90 p1

[Text] Another 777 AIDS cases, with 181 of them in
children up to the age of four, were reported by the
Government yesterday, bringing Zimbabwe's AIDS total
by the end of June to 3,134.

The latest figures are for the second quarter of this year,
which ended on 30 June. A total of 725 cases were
reported for the first three months.

The statistics, released by AIDS Programme Control Co-
ordinator Dr Marowa, said 229 of the sufferers were in the
20 to 29 age group and 231 were in the 30 to 49 bracket.

A breakdown for all age groups said 349 were women and
421 were men. The sex of the 7 others was unspecified.



JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

POLAND

Hospitals, Population Still Plagued by Poor
Knowledge of AIDS Facts

90WE0240A Warsaw TYGODNIK SOLIDARNOSC
in Polish No 21, 25 May 90 pp 12-13

[Article by Jan Strekowski: “Everything About AIDS:
The More Rapidly the Disease is Spreading the Less We
Know and Talk About it”)

[Text] The World Health Organization distinguishes
among three kinds of AIDS epidemics: the first is AIDS
proper, as yet incurable; the second is being a carrier of
the HIV virus, which may cause the disease; and the
third is the epidemic of fear, causing extensive irrational
and often inhuman social behavior toward AIDS
patients and virus carriers as well as toward homosexuals
and drug addicts, who are thought to transmit the
disease.

In Poland since the mid-1980’s more than 750 cases of
carriers of the virus and more than 30 cases of AIDS
have been recorded. Nearly 20 persons died. This is
little, compared with the more than 215,000 cases of
AIDS in 152 countries recorded last January by the
WHO and the estimated minimum of five million people
infected with the HIV. However, the rise in infections in
this country is disturbing.

The first “imported” case of the disease was recorded in
1986, and already in the preceding year the first cases of
HIV carriers were recorded. In the subsequent years the
number of detected HIV infections grew, from eight in
1986 through 32 new ones in 1987, 59 in 1988, to 518 in
1989. More than 3.5 million tests have been performed
so far, and thus the number of patients and infected
persons is proportionately greater, although neither they
themselves nor the people around them are yet aware of
this.

Another unfavorable trend is the considerable growth in
the number of infected drug addicts. It was only in 1988
that the first instances of the presence of the virus in drug
addicts were recorded, yet at present these addicts
account for more than 60 percent of all cases of HIV
detected so far. AIDS patients from that group account
for 15 percent of the total; the reason for this low
proportion is that the disease penetrated the drug addict
milieu relatively late.

Still, this is a disturbing phenomenon. Homosexuals,
who, along with hemophiliacs, were the first to fall prey
to this disease in the United States and West Europe,
have by now succeeded in mobilizing themselves and
even in many cases to halt the spread of AIDS within
their milieu.

Drug addicts are generally heterosexual and hence the
disease spreads to both sexes, as well as to some of the
children of carriers and patients. Thus, the AIDS

EAST EUROPE 19

problem has become an issue of concern to the entire
society, and the entire society must undertake the
struggle against it.

The Council for AIDS appointed in 1987 by the minister
of health to replace the Taskforce for AIDS existing since
1985 developed a program for the prevention and con-
trol of this disease in 1988-90. Many brochures (for
physicians, barbers, and the broader public) were
printed, along with flyers, one of which in the number of
ten million copies, for distribution to all households, and
several films about AIDS were produced. Since 1987 all
blood donated by blood donors has been tested for the
presence of antibodies, and since that time no new cases
of HIV have been recorded among hemophiliacs, who
previously used to get infected by infected blood. There
already exists a sufficient number of tests, and there also
are quick tests, and at one laboratory in this country, the
Institute of Venereology of the Medical Academy in
Warsaw, the tests are done anonymously.

Clinics and hospital wards for AIDS patients are oper-
ating in several cities. Social organizations such as
“Plus—Solidarity Against AIDS,” the “You Are Not
Alone” Foundation, the recently registered Lambda, an
association of homosexuals, as well as certain priests,
clinics for drug addicts, and certain drug treatment
centers, are providing assistance to patients and those
infected by the virus.

The varieties of assistance named above, both those
from the state and social ones, may be a lot compared
with the scale of the already known extent of the disease,
but they are too little to halt the spread of the disease and
assure the care of all patients and those infected with the
HIV in whom the virus has already been detected or will
very soon be detected. They are likewise too little to halt
that third epidemic, the epidemic of fear and intolerance
of patients and infected persons, which is spreading the
most rapidly and seizing many local communities in its
grip.

It almost appears that neither information on the disease
and on the means of its transmission, provided by
experts, nor appeals for common sense, tolerance,
humanitarianism, or Christian charity are reaching the

people.

Why Are Things So Bad?

What of it that ten million flyers were printed, consid-
ering that the postal service distributed only a small part
of them? According to a poll conducted by Dr. Marek
Kozak early in 1989, only 16 percent of ‘families received
these flyers and fewer than one-half of these bothered to
read them.

Lack of interest in this problem is being displayed by
physicians, even though the faulty information system is
not without blame. Brochures for physicians reached
only some of them, with the remainder getting stuck
somewhere en route at ZOZ [health care centers] and
other bureaucratic superstructures of the health service.



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990 4 AIDS

DENMARK

AIDS Experts Hit Slackened Prevention Effort
Mirsten Bjornsson; Copenhagen BERLINGSKE AFTEN, 25 May 90] ....
FINLAND

HIV Increase May Revitalize Information Campaign .....
Teenagers Seen Unaware Helsinki HELSINGIN SANOMAT, 2 Jul 90]

Infections Double in Year [Helsinki HELSINGIN SANOMAT, 16 Jul 90]
IRELAND

Specialist Warns Sexually Transmitted Diseases on Rise
[Stephen McGrath; IRISH INDEPENDENT, 24 May 90)
SWITZERLAND

Increasing Number of Countries Requiring AIDS Test
[Geneva JOURNAL DE GENEVE, 6 Jul 90] ....



30 WEST EUROPE

you look at the world situation, the fact that we don’t
have a national policy is a major embarrassment.”

The committee said a “bulge” of AIDS cases 5 to 10
years from now “will severely tax Canada’s medical and
social resources.”

More than 3,800 Canadians have been diagnosed with
AIDS and almost 2,300 of them have died since the first
case was reported here in February, 1982.

The report said these “grim facts” are “only the tip of the
huge iceberg of suffering and death.”

Mackie said experts expect to see in coming years many
more people who are infected with the HIV virus taking
drugs to prevent the development of AIDS.

“For every person with AIDS, there could be 20 with
HIV,” he said. “That could mean 60,000 infected Cana-
dians. And drug therapy for them will cost a lot of
money. If we can’t cope with 3,000, how will we cope
with 60,000? It’s mind-boggling.”

In 1988, Ottawa committed $129 million to be spent
over five years. But the report said this falls far short of
the amount needed to effectively combat AIDS.

Richard Burzynski, executive director of the Canadian
AIDS Society, whose brief to the committee was incor-
porated in many of the recommendations, praised the
report.

“It’s clearly going to make a very strong statement by
parliamentarians from all three parties that Canada just
isn’t doing enough,” he said.

DENMARK

AIDS Experts Hit Slackened Prevention Effort

90WE0254A Copenhagen BERLINGSKE AFTEN
in Danish 25 May 90 p 5

[Article by Kirsten Bjornsson: “The Forgotten Disease—
AIDS”; first paragraph is BERLINGSKE AFTEN intro-
duction)

[Text] While the infection surfaces in the heterosexual
population, prevention remains in a vacuum.

By 1988 the hysteria was over and we could all breathe
easier. Or, more accurately, to all of us who were neither
gay nor drug addicts, AIDS was no longer a problem.

The Health Commission lowered its estimate of HIV-
infected from between 10,000 and 15,000, to five thou-
sand, while politicians and officials discovered that
AIDS was a problem only for certain deviant groups—
and, oh yes, for third world countries—and lost interest.
Last spring, Elsebeth Kock-Petersen, then Minister of
Health, explained that there was nothing further to be
gained from the massive AIDS campaigns.

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

While health workers in hospital screening clinics are
obliged to inform heterosexual women, in increasing
numbers, that they are infected, and while the disease is
making its way into the rest of the population, official
efforts to combat AIDS have been markedly reduced.

A special 16 million kroner appropriation for AIDS
research has been used up and a new one has not been
made. Project assistance from the budget’s AIDS pool
has been cut from 9.1 million last year to 5.8 million this
year. The Health Commission’s AIDS office, which in
1988 had 18 million for education, received 12 million in
1989 and 10 million this year. Coordination and plan-
ning from above has been lacking since the big cam-
paigns of 1987-88. In addition, the AIDS office was
without a director for an entire year, during which time
consideration was given to abolishing it.

Work Conditions and Burnout

Ignorance still runs high. “Young people don’t get it, do
they?” say the same maturing school children who don’t
want to hear more about AIDS.

There are workers in the health care sector who are still
unaware that the disease can only be transmitted through
the blood and sexual contact. Every tenth health worker
is afraid to hold the hand of an AIDS patient, according
to an investigation last year. When an HIV-positive
patient, one month ago, entered Hvidovre Hospital,
three firemen rode along in the ambulance—two of them
clothed like spacemen with masks over their faces and
with gloves so thick that they could not hold onto the
steering wheel. The public stood back uncertainly.

How valid was such behavior? How dangerous is it
really? One perceives the frustration and relief of health
professionals from being out of the public spotlight.
They are frustrated that the issue has been virtually
forgotten, but they are relieved to be left to work in peace
and glad to escape from participation in overblown
twenty-four hour, nonstop, media extravaganzas around
the captivating theme: sex and death.

In the mid-eighties, AIDS was an event. Big gatherings of
reporters and experts at Rigshospital; every day a new
front page story. Professional commitment was great.
Here was a new field with great challenges, both for
researchers and health care professionals.

In recent years many nurses have left treatment facilities.
Work with terminally ill young people is hard to distance
onself from, and when the daily work has to be done,
burnout is as much a reality as weight charts and
vacation aspirations.

“It has to do with all of the loss that one is exposed to,”
says Annie Abildtrup, a nurse from Hvidovre Hospital.
“When you involve yourself with an AIDS patient, you
have to talk about so many taboo subjects—sexuality,
death, suicide. In the process, you give a lot of yourself,
and that creates an intimacy.



16 EAST ASIA

provinces. Incidence of TB is much higher in the rural
areas. “What is worrisome is that AIDS is now spreading
rapidly. This disease could lead to another outbreak of
TB, because people with AIDS lose their immunity.
Thus, the Ministry of Public Health will join with
Bangkok Metropolitan in fighting TB.”

Dr. Kowit added that there are presently about 12,300
TB carriers in Bangkok Metropolitan who can transmit
the disease to others. But only about 8,000 have come for
treatment. Thus, Bangkok Metropolitan is trying to
inform people of the dangers of this disease. And it is
looking for a way to prevent this disease. Exhibits will be
set up at all 59 public health service centers in Bangkok
Metropolitan. At the same time, free TB examinations
are being offered at the TB Department, the Bangkok
Metropolitan public hall, the Suang Ok and Yot Se
hospitals, and other places.

Prostitutes Surveyed on AIDS Knowledge

90WE0313E Bangkok DAILY NEWS in Thai 5 Aug 90
pp 1,10

[Excerpts] [passage omitted] Professor Somsak Wora-
khamin, the under secretary of public health, told
reporters that the Ministry of Public Health is now
making an effort in various provinces throughout the
country to prevent AIDS. [passage omitted]

Dr. Somsak said that officials conducted a study to
determine the knowledge and views of prostitutes con-
cerning protecting themselves from contracting AIDS
and the steps, if any, that they have taken to prevent
spreading this disease. The study was conducted among
a group of prostitutes in one province using interviews
and questionnaires. The study showed that the average
age of the prostitutes was 21, and most were from the
north. Forty-five percent had completed Grade 6. The
respondents had been working as prostitutes anywhere
from one month to two years. Each girl had sexual
intercourse an average of nine times a day and used a
condom an average of seven times. [passage omitted]
(From a survey of 158 prostitutes from 13 offices.)

The under secretary of public health said that almost all
of the prostitutes surveyed knew about or had heard
reports about AIDS from various sources. More than
half knew what the symptoms of AIDS are. But most
mistakenly thought that once a person contracts the
disease, he or she will immediately show symptoms.
Eighty percent knew that AIDS can be transmitted
through sexual contact, and 85 percent knew that AIDS
can be prevented by using a condom. Sixty-five percent
knew that there is presently no cure for this disease, and
50 percent knew that this disease is always fatal. Seventy-
three percent did not believe that using a condom will
really prevent this disease even though they were aware
that condoms can prevent AIDS.

Thus, what they believe is not in line with what they
know. Eighty-eight percent think that once a person has
contracted AIDS, that person should stop earning a

IPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

living as a prostitute. But only 41 percent said that they
intend to do that. Things were somewhat better with
respect to prevention. That is, 74 percent said that they
would recommend that their customers use a condom,
55 percent said that they will get an AIDS examination
every three months, and 43 percent said that they will
not allow themselves to become pregnant. These prosti-
tutes have some knowledge about AIDS. The spread of
this disease by both themselves and their customers can
be prevented if they are given more knowledge about
this. They have been reports that some prostitutes must
serve as many as 29 customers a day. That is very
dangerous. [passage omitted]

Rayong AIDS Cases, IV Drug Use
90WE0314B Bangkok NAEO NA in Thai 1 Aug 90 p 5

[Excerpts] [Passage omitted]: Mr. Suchat Thamamon-
gkhon, the governor of Rayong Province told NAEO NA
that: “In Rayong Province we have discovered about 320
people with the AIDS virus just among those we have
examined. We expect that there are many more among
those we have not examined,” Mr. Suchat said.

Rayong Province is within the area of the Eastern
Seaboard Development Project or the Eastern Seaboard
Project. This development was intended to create a new
industrial area (NICS).

In addition the governor explained about the spread of
AIDS. He said that one cause was the sharing of needles
among intravenous drug users and that most of those
who acquired AIDS in this way were young people and
laborers. [passage omitted]

Phayao AIDS Cases, Drug Addicts

90WE0314C Bangkok DAILY NEWS in Thai 8 Aug 90
pp 1,13

[Excerpt] [passage omitted] Dr. Supchai Saison, a public
health doctor of Phayao Province disclosed concerning
AIDS that a survey on 25 July 1990 discovered 505
people in Phayao Province with the AIDS virus. Those
examined had come to be checked for venereal disease
and included husbands, wives, prostitutes, pedicab
drivers, students, soldiers, police and 300 defendants
under detention of whom 50 percent were prostitutes
and more than 40 percent were drug addicts who shared
needles. How the others contracted the disease was not
known. The other 205 cases involved prostitutes who
had contracted the virus elsewhere and had been sent
back to their native area.

Dr. Supchai said that the symptoms of AIDS victims
could be divided into three stages. Those in the first stage
displayed no symptoms and appeared to be normal; they
would show symptoms in four to seven years, and then
they would be in the second stage. Those in the second
stage would live another three to four years without
serious symptoms. In the third stage or A.R.C. the
victims displayed enlarged lymph glands, diarrhoea and



2 EAST EUROPE

Above all, however,. these conflicts have elicited a
response from the official circles, such as the Citizens’
Rights Spokesperson or the Senate’s Commission for the
Rights of Man and Rule of Law, whose declarations in
favor of the HIV carriers from Konstancin may signal a
beginning in the application and presence of law. Then
too there are the recent changes in certain restrictive
regulations ensuing from the addition of AIDS in 1986
to the list of communicable diseases (e.g., compulsory
hospitalization or attempts to test a patient without his
knowledge), also in the case of persons ill with AIDS or
infected with the virus causing that disease.

In Poland foreign applicants for university studies are
required to be tested for AIDS. Foreigners already at the
universities are exempt from this requirement. However,
during the 1987/1988 all foreign university students
were tested for AIDS. Six were found to have the HIV
virus, but not one was expelled. Tests for the presence of
anti-HIV antibodies are recommended for patients with
sexually transmitted diseases, prostitutes (once every
6-12 months), homosexuals (once a year), drug addicts
(once every 6-12 months), hemophiliacs (once a year),
partners of infected persons (twice, at a 3-month inter-
val), children of infected persons, and persons whose
condition points to the possibility of the disease. All
portions of blood from blood donors are tested. “Before
donating blood, donors are expected to familiarize them-
selves with information on AIDS and, after reading it,
they are expected to pledge themselves that they do not
belong to any of the groups mentioned in the informa-
tion (homosexuals, prostitutes, drug addicts, bisexuals,
hemophiliacs, and foreigners—permanently disqualified
from donating blood, while persons returning from Cen-
tral and Western Africa, the United States, and West
Europe, regardless of the duration of their trip, as well as
persons subjected to tattooing or acupuncture and per-
sons released from imprisonment are disqualified from
donating blood for nine months—noted by J.S.). Persons
belonging in any of the groups mentioned above should

SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

not donate blood and, upon their familiarizing them-
selves with the above information, they should be
enabled to depart the institution without stating the
reason....Information about donors with anti-HIV anti-
bodies (and about other persons with a positive find-
ing—J.S.) is kept strictly confidential by physicians”
(“Preventive, Diagnostic, and Therapeutic Procedures
in the Even of HIV Contamination or AIDS Illness:
Indications for Health Service Employees,” published by
the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in 1989).

“HIV is sensitive to external factors... The virus is
particularly sensitive to the effect of higher tempera-
tures. At a temperature of 56 degrees centigrade it dies
within 30 minutes. It also is sensitive to disinfectants,
such as chlorine compounds, formalin, and glutaric
aldehyde” (‘Preventive, Diagnostic, and Therapeutic
Procedures in the Even of HIV Contamination or AIDS
Illness: Indications for Health Service Employees,” pub-
lished by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in
1989).

“WE EMPHASIZE the need to protect the rights of man
and human dignity....Any branding, any discrimination
against carriers of the AIDS virus and certain others is to
be rejected, because this harms the public health.” (From
the Declaration of the World Summit of Ministers of
Health in London, 1988.)

The conflicts concerning HIV carriers are doubtless
painful to these persons, so severely tried by fate who,
instead of acceptance and help and moral support as well
(even the Catholic Church’s attitude has been
restrained), have been experiencing humiliations,
unpleasantries, and sufferings. However, the very fact of
the publicity about these matters may cause the problem
of AIDS in this country to become something discussed
and spoken about instead of being shoved into the
underground of the persons afflicted by this disease. It
would be dreadful if this disease were to spread the more
rapidly the less we know and speak of it.



18 EAST ASIA

country just mentioned those sick with AIDS. We were
in 11th place in Asia about even with Malaysia; we dared
to say this because we were speaking on the basis of
scientific principles and epidemiology. When we spoke
of the number of people with AIDS, we did not want
people to be afraid; we wanted people to be careful not to
get AIDS from being promiscuous. If we had been silent
and not said anything about the AIDS situation, it would
have been more dangerous because the people would not
have known about the problem and would not have used
condoms when they were promiscuous. This was one
reason we had to inform people all about the AIDS
situation in Thailand.

VIETNAM

AIDS Prevention, Control Program

BK2808041690 Hanoi VNA in English 1440 GMT
27 Aug 90

[Text] Although no case of HIV infection or AIDS has
been detected in Vietnam so far, a medium-term pro-
gram is being prepared with the recommendations of the
World Health Organization (WHO).

Vietnam is among the 11 out of 38 countries in Asia and
among the 22 out of 181 in the world still unaffected by
AIDS.

SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

But with the increasing number of Vietnamese going
abroad and foreigners entering the country, and the
spread of prostitution the danger of HIV infection and
AIDS morbidity is real.

An AIDS Committee headed by Professor Hoang Thuy
Nguyen was established in 1987 under the Ministry of
Public Health. But it was not until 1989 that prevention
and control was given a fillip in the form of a short-term
program within the framework of the WHO-sponsored
global program on AIDS.

With the assistance of WHO and the Pasteur Institute in
Paris, laboratories for HIV diagnosis have been set up in
Hanoi, Haiphong, Hue, Danang.

These laboratories, in collaboration with the Pasteur
Institutes in Paris and in Bangui, the Central African
Republic, and the Swedish National Biological Labora-
tory, have tested more than 43,200 blood samples taken
from high risk groups population centers: Hanoi,
Haiphong, Danang and Ho Chi Minh City. All the tests
were negative.

A National AIDS Committee will be founded soon to
take charge of the program on AIDS prevention and
control which is aimed at preventing HIV transmission
and reducing the morbidity and mortality associated
with HIV infection, and at education on AIDS-related
problems.

In the context of the short-term program, a WHO-
funded training course on the surveillance and clinical
management of HIV infection was held in Hanoi from
July 31 to August 3 for 36 doctors and chief nurses.



JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

“In one way, it is positive, because you start to think
about what you want out of life and what is likely
irrelevant. But all the loss, all of the people you lose—
that drains you. We try to protect one another, to
support the nurse who went to a patient’s funeral yes-
terday and to give her a more upbeat job. Taking care of
the patients who come in with malaria or meningitis, for
instance.”

Discussing a Fabricated Number

The first two Danes died of AIDS in 1981. The number of
registered cases was up to 93 by 1986, and by the end of
1989, the number of registered AIDS cases was 533. Bad
enough, but nothing to equal the explosion one had
orignally feared. It was clear that the prognostications
with the steeply rising curves needed to be revised, when
in 1988 the Health Commission adjusted its estimate of
HIV-infected from between 10,000 and 15,000 to five
thousand.

None of the leading Danish AIDS researchers believe
that the epidemic is slowing down.

“There is no sign of it. On the contrary,” says Dr. Jorn
Olsen, professor of medicine at Arhus University. “The
problem is that the Health Commission has never said:
We don’t know how many are infected.‘ Someone
came up with a fabricated number, and it is this fabri-
cated number that they have been discussing, instead of
obtaining data on how the disease is developing in the
population.

“This could be done through anonymous testing of
pregnant women and other selected groups, as I, and
others, have proposed for many years. There have been
concerns voiced about preserving the principles of vol-
untariness and anonymity. Now it looks like we will get
anonymous testing. But it will take five to ten years
before we find out whether the disease is spreading
among heterosexuals, as we think it is. If we had insti-
tuted systematic monitoring a long time ago, we
wouldn’t have wasted five years.”

Currently, 2,200 Danes have been found to be HIV-
positive, and the best guess today is that just as many are
infected without knowing it. A new HIV-positive is
registered every day and, since “only” fifty die a year, the
population of infection carriers grows steadily.

It is not especially infectious in the beginning, when the
body’s defense mechanism is still able to hold the virus
down. Later in the process, when the defense mechanism
collapses, the danger of infection grows apace with the
production of virus. Jorn Olsen foresees that the danger
of infection will increase as the epidemic becomes more
“mature”.

The Risk to Heterosexuals

The portion of HIV-positives that are infected through
heterosexual contact has grown from six percent between
1980 and 1988, to 11 percent in 1989. But is there actually

WEST EUROPE 31

a heterosexual epidemic on the way? “It can’t be
excluded,” says the professor from Arhus. “The danger
of infection is much lower with vaginal intercourse than
with anal. Nevertheless, the danger exists, and in some
parts of the world, it is the primary mode of infection.”

He points to British calculations, based on what is
currently known about people’s behavior and promis-
cuity. They conclude that one percent of the popula-
tion—50,000 in Danish terms—will be infected in the
course of 40 years, before reaching a balance where the
same number die as are infected.

“It may be that those who say we will not have a
heterosexual epidemic are correct. But we don’t know
that, so we are obliged to act as though we will have it.

“I am very disappointed in the cutbacks which have
occurred in research. It is a relatively modest investment
compared to what is invested in treatment. An AIDS
patient can easily cost from one half to a million [kroner]
per year. And, whereas in the beginning one reckoned
with only ten to fifteen percent of the infected devel-
oping AIDS, one expects today that at least half of them
will. Some say that all of the infected will get AIDS,
although it may take 20 to 25 years.

Competing Diseases

A keyword of the eighties health debate has been preven-
tion. Another prioritization. In March of 1989, shocked
health care professionals could see how literally the
administration took these two terms.

The administration’s prevention program prioritizes
accidents, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, muscular and
skeletal disorders, and mental disorders. “Prioritizing
occurred in the period when AIDS had already received
much attention,” says Health Minister Ester Larsen. At
that time, Kirsten Lee (Radical Liberal Party) expressed
it this way: AIDS has received all the money it should
have.‘ Lee pointed to the thousands who die of alcohol
abuse and the 5,000 peoople who die each year from
smoking: ’At the present time, 182 have died here as a
result of AIDS.“

Others have added that 20,000 to 25,000 people a year
die of cardiovascular diseases and 10,000 to 15,000 from
various forms of cancer. Dr. Jens Ole Nielsen from
Hvidovre knows the figures better than he would like to:

“J hate this competition among the diseases. You cannot
measure a disease’s significance by the number of deaths.
Everybody will die. And if I die of a blood clot in my
heart at the age of 78, consider it a natural cause of
death.

“They have rated AIDS abroad by the number of years
lost from life expectancy, and in the United States, the
number of years lost because of AIDS is half of what can
be attributed to cardiovascular diseases. Fewer die, but
they are young people. We have all the way down to
seventeen, eighteen, twentyfive-year-olds lying here



JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

THAILAND

Concern Rises in Chonburi Over AIDS

90WE0314A Bangkok BAN MUANG in Thai 30 Jul 90
pp I, 20

[Excerpts] [Passage omitted] Dr Sonchai Watana, an
expert in treating and preventing disease in the Chonburi
Province Public Health Office, after taking part in a
seminar on 29 July in the town of Pattaya in Chonburi
Province concerning coordinating efforts to control
AIDS with family planning efforts, revealed that there
were a total of 1,181 people with the AIDS virus in
Chonburi Province and there was one with the complete
AIDS symptoms. [passage omitted] There were 20 with
the AIDS Related Complex, and there were 1,160 with
the AIDS virus who showed no symptoms. Those with
the AIDS virus were found in all the districts, but most
were in the municiple district where there were 430
cases. These were primarily the result of drug addiction,
66 percent, and sexual relations, 30 percent, while four
percent were from blood transfusions, babies acquiring it
from their mothers, and unknown causes.

Dr. Sonchai said that public health officials still did not
have the weapons at hand to eliminate the AIDS virus
and therefore the best way to control AIDS was to
procede with health education and public relations.
[passage omitted]

Dr. Sonchai also said that even though they had tried to
conduct a public relations campaign concerning AIDS
directed toward people in all walks of life, nevertheless
the number of people with AIDS in Chonburi had not
dropped but had continued to climb steadily. In any case
the World Health Organization estimated that in 1996
Thailand would have about 1.2 million people with the
AIDS virus. Chonburi Province was concerned about the
battle against AIDS because if nothing were done it
might end up with the AIDS cases the World Health
Organization predicted. If that happened it would have
10,200 people with AIDS in 1996, which was a very
alarming figure. [passage omitted]

Drug Treatment Program Successful

BK0208014790 Bangkok BANGKOK POST in English
2 Aug 90 p 3

[Text] The Public Health Ministry yesterday announced
that 84 percent of drug addicts treated by the Govern-
ment’s first rehabilitation centre had been cured.

During a press conference at Thanyarak Hospital yes-
terday, Assistant Public Health Minister Prasong Bun-
phong and hospital director Thongchai Un-Eklap also
said the ministry had been closely following AIDS since
the first fullblown case was discovered in 1984.

They said most cases of the deadly disease used to be
found among homosexuals but since 1988 statistics show
that some 40 percent of AIDS cases were intravenous
drug addicts.

EAST ASIA 13

The three rehabilitation centres at Thanyarak Hospital,
each with 60 beds, can treat drug addicts for one or
one-and-a-half years, they said.

Drug addiction patients and their families are also
taught about AIDS and how it is spread. Advice on
medical treatment and social problems are also given.

Thanyarak rehabilitation centre, they said, is the first of
its kind run by the Government.

AIDS, Drug User Update

90WE0313B Bangkok MATICHON in Thai
2 Aug 90 p 22

[Text] On the morning of 1 August at the Thanyarak
Hospital, Dr. Prasong Bunphong, the deputy minister of
public health, and Dr. Thongchai Un-ekkalap, the
director of this hospital, issued a joint statement on
AIDS among drug users. They said that since 1988, the
incidence of AIDS has increased 69.8 percent among
intravenous drug users. The department has begun using
community-type drug rehabilitation methods and has
established three rehabilitation centers. This treatment
has been effective in curing 84 percent of the drug
addicts of their drug habit, which is an excellent result.
At the Thanyarak hospital, Dr. Thira Rammasut, the
director-general of the Department of Communicable
Disease Control, said that data on AIDS victims as of 31
July show that there are 8,403 AIDS carriers in the
central region, 1,899 in the south, 1,320 in the northeast,
and 955 in the north. Based on an evaluation of the
AIDS control efforts during the past six months, it has
been found that the number of drug addicts with AIDS
has increased only five percent. This shows that drug
users know how to protect themselves. Among prosti-
tutes, the number of AIDS cases has doubled. Dr. Thira
said that efforts are being made to persuade more men to
use condoms through questions by prostitutes and
brothel owners.

Health Ministry Reports Number of AIDS
Carriers

BK2108114690 Bangkok Domestic Service in Thai
1200 GMT 19 Aug 90

[Text] The permanent secretary of the Public Health
Ministry, Dr. Somsak Worakhamin, reported that at
present there are 266,098 AIDS carriers spread
throughout 157 countries worldwide. America has the
highest number, while Asia the smallest number. The
AIDS virus is rapidly spreading as several countries are
trying to find medicine to cure AIDS. In Thailand,
20,218 people tested positive with the AIDS virus. Of
this number, 16,790 are male and 3,428 female. Two of
the women are prostitutes. [as heard] Men patronizing
prostitutes are alerted and are advised to use condoms.



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

other factors responsible for high morbidity and death
rates among us. He then explained that AIDS is quite
deserving of the significance attached to it, for all the
reasons that have been cited, and also because the
growing number of infected individuals will soon have
an extraordinary socioeconomic demographic impact.

Dr. Boal cautioned: “At the current rate of the viral
infection’s progress among the urban populations of
Central and East Africa, during this decade a doubling or
even tripling of the general death rates among adults and
a 50 percent rise in child death rates may be foreseen.”

During the morning, some points raised by the donors
were explained. The vice minister of health, the national
health director, and the chairman of the National Com-
mission To Combat AIDS provided the necessary infor-
mation.

127 AIDS Cases Reported 1986-July 1990

MB1109212090 Maputo Domestic Service in Portuguese
1730 GMT 11 Sep 90

[Excerpt] A total of 127 AIDS cases were reported in
Mozambique between 1986 and 31 July 1990. This was
disclosed at a regional health seminar which began in
Maputo yesterday. [passage omitted]

NAMIBIA

232 AIDS Cases as of March 1990

90WE0296A Windhoek THE NAMIBIAN in English
11 May 90 p 3

[Article by Mbatjiua Ngvirue: “AIDS Spreading at An
Alarming Rate”’]

[Text] The AIDS situation in Namibia is very alarming
and worrying, particularly when one considers the fact
that the population of the country is so small.

That is the stark assessment of the growing threat the
country faces from AIDS given by Steven Titus, head of
the Epidemiology Department at the Ministry of Health
and Welfare.

In his opinion Namibians do not take the dangers of
AIDS seriously but the time has come for them to
become serious about this deadly disease.

Titus was speaking after having just made public new
and shocking statistics about the AIDS situation in the
country earlier this week.

The frightening new picture that has emerged is based on
a review of the available data on AIDS collected since
1986 when the first cases in Namibia were reported.

The reassessment stated in January this year when Titus
was appointed to build up an entirely new Epidemology
Department from scratch. The key finding is that
although AIDS is not as common in Namibia as in many

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 5

neighbouring countries the spread of the disease is
growing at an alarming rate.

The real shock is that with a population of only 1.5
million the number of AIDS cases in Namibia is not far
behind that of South Africa which has a population of 30
million.

The total number of cases reported in Namibia stood at
232 at the end of March 1990 while as of February 12 the
total reported number of cases in South Africa was 326.

The rate at which the AIDS scourge has spread in
Namibia is even more terrifying if one looks at the
annual increase in cases since the initial four cases in
1986.

1987 saw 15 new AIDS cases reported; this figure
climbed to 43 in 1988 which then jumped to an aston-
ishing 127 new cases for 1989.

In the first three months of 1990 alone there were 43 new
AIDS cases reported which is the same number as for the
whole of 1988.

“If there were 43 cases just from January to March you
can get an idea of the number we can expect for the
remaining nine months of the year,” Titus said.

In 1986 there were no deaths from AIDS in Namibia, but
in 1987 one victim died and since then the figure has
steadily climbed to five deaths in 1988 reaching 29
deaths in 1989.

Again the picture looks even bleaker in 1990 where there
has already been four deaths in the period January to
March.

The fatality rate expressed as a percentage has also risen
rapidly - starting with zero in 1986, seven percent in
1987, 12 percent in 1988 and finally 23 percent in 1989.

Titus was not prepared to disclose figures on the regional
distribution of AIDS victims because that might cause
more harm than good at this stage.

He acknowledged, however, that this was vital informa-
tion and he indicated that the figures might be made
available within the next two months.

Titus stressed that Namibia’s growing AIDS crisis could
not be solved by the Department of Health alone, but
that there had to be community involvement.

“People must take AIDS seriously—acquaint themselves
with the facts about AIDS and practice safe sex,” he said.

44 New AIDS Cases in May 1990

90WE0296C Windhoek TIMES OF NAMIBIA
in English 4 Jul 90 p 3

[Text] Namibia Health authorities have reported 44 new
AIDS cases in May, bringing to 122 the total number of
AIDS cases reported in the country this year, NAMBC
news reports.



28 SOVIET UNION

to combatting “the plague of the twentieth century” can
join a collective of proponents through the editorial
office of RABOCHAYA TRIBUNA.

Armenian Doctors on Possible AIDS Remedy

NC2808 123490 Yerevan ARMENPRES International
Service in Armenian 1215 GMT 27 Aug 90

[Excerpts] Recently the union and international press
reported that the Armenian specialists have developed
an effective compound to fight the AIDS virus. Is this
sensational? [passage omitted] ARMENPRES asked
Robert Zakaryan, deputy director of the experimental
biological research institute of the Armenian Academy
of Sciences and candidate of sciences, and Professor Jan
Akobyan, doctor of science and director of the molecular
enzymology laboratory, to comment on this.

R. Zakaryan: “Any announcement about a cruel ailment
is sensational. The fact is that our institute has not yet
announced such a discovery. It has only stated that it has
developed a compound whose effectiveness has already
become apparent during laboratory tests on cultured
cells. [passage omitted] The results obtained are really
encouraging, and I think for the time being there is no
reason to be disillusioned. I will even go as far as to say
that one of the components of that compound has
proven its effectiveness not only on the cultured cells but
during the next stage of the research on some viral
infection models in animals. That means that the com-
pound has anti-viral characteristics. It is a matter of time
before drugs are prepared on the basis of that compound.
Regrettably, everything does not depend solely on those
who have prepared the compound.”

J. Akobyan: “The compound has to be further developed
and advanced to a point where it could turn into a drug.
We already have the basic thing with the compound
itself and the scientific potential. However, we lack the
appropriate equipment and other means to take us to the
next stage of research. We need help. We asked V.I.

SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Pokrovskiy, president of the USSR medical sciences
academy in Moscow, to consider experimenting with the
compound under clinical conditions. However, we
received no reply to our application and cable.” [passage
omitted]

Namangan Visitor Brings AIDS to Kzyl-Orda

PM2809141190 Moscow PRAVDA in Russian
25 Sep 90 Second Edition p 6

[PRAVDA correspondent D. Gutenev article: “Now
AIDS as Well...”]

[Text] Kzyl-Orda—The quarantine that was imposed
owing to the fatal case of plague has been lifted in Aralsk.

But people were recently agitated by another unpleasant
piece of news: The AIDS virus has been detected in a
patient at the rayon center of Chiili. Some 165 people
who had been in contact with the patient have been
screened. Admittedly, the patient was not a local but a
visitor from Namangan who felt unwell en route. Nev-
ertheless an emergency commission has been set up in
the oblast and emergency measures to prevent the spread
of the dread disease have been outlined.

Scientists Register 541 People With AIDS

£D1009092390 Moscow Domestic Service in Russian
0100 GMT 10 Sep 90

[Text] Soviet scientists attended an AIDS seminar in the
United States.

Vadim Valentinovich Pokrovskiy, chairman of the Asso-
ciation to Combat AIDS, attended the seminar. He says
authorities now have data on approximately 150,000
Soviet citizens who have had contact with AIDS infected
people.

A total of 541 people currently infected with the AIDS
virus have been registered in the USSR. Scientists say as
many as 20,000 citizens may be infected with AIDS.



IJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Sources said that though the Tropical School was
receiving blood samples from prostitutes with the help of
an international voluntary organization, it was yet to
examine blood samples from the red light area in Kid-
derpore, considered the most “AIDS—pro-zone” in the
city. Foreign sailors, who are often the carriers of the
deadly AIDS virus, frequent the Kidderpore brothels
and also pockets in Free School Street and Dacre’s Lane.
After the detection of AIDS in Pearibai in the Kidder-
pore area, some pimps started blackmailing the prosti-
tutes threatening that they would have the women
labelled AIDS-positive cases. Hence, prostitutes have
resisted all attempts to collect blood samples from the
Kidderpore area.

Crisis Feared, Conference Planned

90WD0665 Calcutta THE STATESMAN in English
13 Jul 90 p 5

[Text] The Indian Health Organization will hold a con-
gress on AIDS in India later this year to focus on issues
relating to the disease in the developing countries,
reports PTI.

The secretary of the organization, a non-Governmental
organization, Dr I.S. Gilada, said India could face a
major AIDS crisis in the next five years if immediate
preventive measures are not taken. Complacency and
inaction could make India among the worst hit nations,
he said.

Dr Gilada, who attended the recent AIDS conference in
San Francisco, said the developing countries, some of
which may face the brunt of the disease in the coming
years were grossly under represented at the conference.
Out of 10,600 delegates, only 560 were from the devel-
oping countries.

Because of the high cost of treatment with drugs like
AZT, the emphasis in the developing countries has to be
on prevention rather than treatment, he said. The orga-
nization will host a three day world congress on AIDS in
Bombay from 7 December.

NEAR EAST & SOUTH ASIA 25

Dr Gilada said AIDS among prostitutes, one of the
highest risk group was increasing at an alarming pace.
According to a survey conducted by his organization in
1986 in Bombay less than 0.5 percent prostitutes exam-
ined were found to be infected with HIV.

A year later the percentage rose to one. In 1988, 3
percent were found infected and the percentage rose
sharply to 10 in 1989. By mid 1990 the percentage had
gone up to 20, he said.

In a particular pocket, “indications are that about 70
percent of them are infected with HIV, he said. The data
collected by a team of doctors from Madras last month,
he said, showed about 526 of 800 prostitutes rescued
from Bombay tested positive for HIV antibodies.

Dr Gilada said a study in Bombay had found a large
number of professional blood donors infected with HIV
and about one-third had some symptoms of AIDS.
Professional blood donors meet 50 percent of the need
for blood in India and also supply blood to companies
manufacturing human blood products.

PAKISTAN

Paper Reports Spread of AIDS Cases

BK1808131890 Islamabad THE MUSLIM in English
18 Aug 90 p 8

[Excerpt] AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syn-
drome), the deadly disease, unknown till few years back
has assumed an alarming proportion in Pakistan.

Official sources say that the number of AIDS patients
had shot up from 37 to 57, which they thought was an
alarming portent. Experts are of the view that the
reported cases represent only a tip of iceberge. AIDS
virus is much higher than the reported one. Just three
months earlier, there were 50 AIDS patients of whom 13
died. [pasasage omitted]



2 SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

On Monday, the chief medical officer here, Dr. Beverly
Miller, said that at least six thousand Barbadians would
become infected with the HIV [Human Immune Virus]
within five years, and Professor Walrond said that to
date, there are 127 AIDS cases here since the first case
was reported in 1984, Walrond said that in addition to
that figure, 170 people have been identified as being HIV
positive, but “showing no signs of the symptoms.”

Dr. Miller said that 54 percent of the AIDS cases have
occurred in homosexual and bisexual men and 20 per-
cent in heterosexual men and women.

“Prenatal transmission accounts for five percent.... And
a 1.6 percent is associated with blood transfusion, before
routine testing of blood was started,” Dr. Miller.

CAMEROON

70 AIDS Cases in Northwest Province

90WE0297A Yaounde CAMEROON TRIBUNE
in English 4 Jul 90 p 4

[Article by Tambi Samuel (CAMNEWS): “70 AIDS
Cases in the North West”]

[Text] The North West Provincial chief of Preventive
Medicines and Rural Health Services, Dr. Andy Tembon
Chi, has disclosed that there are 70 cases of the Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the North
West Province at the moment.

Dr. Tembon who was addressing chairmen of the various
village health committees in the province at the Primary
Health Care hall last May 30 remarked that this alarming
figure had risen from two in 1987.

In view of the appalling disaster that this killer disease
brings to human beings, the North West Preventive
Medicines boss stressed that it is high time people use
the Holy Bible and maintain the principle of one man,
one wife. He said those men and women who have
decided to be promiscuous stand the risk of being
victims to this illness which for now has no cure.

Dr. Tembon remarked that “if we have the love and
respect for our families and also feel for them we should
avoid sexual promiscuity or use condoms if we must not
control ourselves”.

That is why, he said, precautionary measures are being
taken at the hospitals to ensure that this disease is
eliminated. Among the measures taken are that no blood
transfusions can be done without proper test. He said the
health authorities advocate that sexual intercourse
should be reserved for the married only.

He however disclosed that the easiest ways through
which the disease is communicated are through blood
transfusion, injection and vaccination if the elements are
not well treated.

IPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

The North West Preventive boss thus appealed to the
entire public in the province to ensure that they always
come up for thorough medical checks to avoid problems
which can be an embarrassment not only to the victims
but to their families and close associates.

AIDS Rate - 2.72 Percent of People in South

90WE0297B Yaounde CAMEROON TRIBUNE
in English 25 May 90 p 3

[Article by Johnnie MacVIBAN, Ebolowa: “South
Updates Sensitisation Action”; first paragraph is intro-
ductory paragraph]

[Text] With 20 seropositive cases already registered,
health authorities in the South province are seeking ways
to curb the spread of AIDS.

A two-day seminar on AIDS evaluation and the updating
of the actions of the provincial committee of the fight
against AIDS, has ended at the conference hall of
Ebolowa’s Hotel “Je Ranch” with far-reaching recom-
mendations on future steps to be taken to halt its spread.
Participants who came from various public and private
organizations listened to exposes and engaged in debates
on how to cater for those already having AIDS.

Co-ordinating the activities, the provincial delegate for
Public Health for the South, Dr. Banemeg spoke of the
concerted actions. taken by the provincial committee in
sensitizing youths on the reality and proportions of the
killer-disease. The committee, it was noticed, had tested
718 persons with 20 positive cases - a prevalence per-
centage of 2.72% which is not negligible. The mode of
transmission of the disease in the province is the same -
through sex, blood or child birth. As the disease has not
yet got a cure, the committees’ activities were also
centred on mass education on the only means of stopping
the spread through prevention.

Participants pondered on many subjects ranging from
the negative action by some Cameroonians in the face of
the disease, sexual promiscuity and the proper use of the
condom. The condom it was noticed in as much as it
helps stop the spread of AIDS, also acted as a buffer
towards the spread of other sexually transmitted dis-
eases.

In the fight against the disease, it was recommended that
a multi-sectoral collaboration be introduced, since the
health services alone could not be able to sensitize large
populations. There was also a call for society to take
charge over people already considered as AIDS patients.

Closing the seminar, the Secretary General of the prov-
ince, Mr. Justin Enonguene, deputizing for the Governor
said the seminar was a total success and wished that the
provincial committee extend its activities to all the
corners of the province.



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

INTER-AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Interstate Workshop To Combat AIDS Organized

90WE0286A Ndjamena AL-WATAN in French
14-20 July 90 p 10

[Article by Neldibaye M. Carpenter: “AIDS Informa-
tion, Education, and Communication: Giving the
Highest Priority to the World Fight Against AIDS”; first
paragraph is AL-WATAN introduction]

[Text] An interstate workshop on health measures to
combat AIDS, organized by the regional office of the
World Health Organization (WHO), was held in Ndja-
mena in the CEFOD [expansion unknown] meeting
room from 9 to 14 July, 1990. The workshop gathered
the experts of 12 French-speaking African countries
affected by the terrible disease of our times, AIDS.

The workshop had several aims: first of all, to exchange
information on how different nations have fared in their
efforts to combat AIDS, and to examine and discuss the
teaching materials developed to inform, educate, and
communicate about AIDS in each country. Second, to
share experiences in two realms: targeting of at-risk
groups that were taught about AIDS using the focus-
group technique, and incorporating AIDS teaching into
primary health-care programs. ‘‘Chadian citizens!
Fidelity to A SINGLE partner keeps you safe from
AIDS”: that is how our behavior must now change.

The opening ceremony of the extensive workshop was
presided over by the state secretary of Public Health, Mr.
Hamid Moussai, representing that ministry. During his
welcoming remarks to participants from Algeria, Benin,
Burkina, the Comoros, the two Guineas (Conakry and
Equatorial), Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and
Togo, Mr. Moussai drew the experts’ attention to the
scourge of our time, which is ravaging the entire planet
without distinctions of country or race, and to which
Africa is exposed more than anyone because of the
weakness of its sociohealth infrastructure and its overall
level of development.

The experiences of the different countries gathered in
this forum will enable the subregion to coordinate ideas
and collective programs to mount an effective fight. And
the technical information provided will strengthen the
health measures against AIDS in French-speaking
African countries. The momentum built up to combat
AIDS is a splendid example of South-South and world
cooperation in health. Despite efforts to find the best
ways of bolstering prevention and treatment in national
anti-AIDS programs, HIV infection is only worsening,
and WHO is continually seeking ways to combat the
scourge. When the workshop is over, participants will
have the opportunity to translate their ideas and plans
into action, to overcome the people’s ignorance of our
era’s terrible disease.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 1

Researcher Says Kenyan AIDS Drug Effective

FL1109200090 Bridgetown CANA in English
1834 GMT 11 Sep 90

[By Peter Richards and Sandra Philias]

[Text] Caribbean Community governments should turn
to Kenya in the search for a cure to the killer disease
AIDS, the head of the Barbados AIDS Task Force
suggested on Tuesday. Professor E. R. Mickey Walrond
told reporters that regional governments should ask
Nairobi to provide Kemron, a drug developed by the
Kenya Medical Research Institute which has proven to
be effective in combating the symptons of the killer
disease. Walrond was in Kenya at the invitation of the
Commonwealth Secretariat September 3-7 attending an
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) Confer-
ence.

“J will be writing a report to the regional health minis-
ters,” he told reporters.“ ...1 am going to recommend that
this is a treatment that they should try and recommend,
also that when it is being tried that a study be set up in a
way that we can discover as much as we can about the
drug.

“I think it ought to be tried,” Walrond asserted, adding
that “there is something in it.”

Kenya has accused Western countries of ignoring the
African state’s contribution to the fight against the
disease, which kills by destroying the body’s immune
system. Last month Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi
said that Kemron had “completely cured” 50 AIDS
patients, and Kenyan researcher Dr. Davey Koech said
the drug was “able to reverse the common symptoms” of
AIDS in nearly all patients tested in the previous five
months. [sentence as received]

Walrond said what was further positive about Kemron
was that it had produced no side-effects common with
other drugs being tested and used to cure the disease.

“Some of the patients that we certainly talked to, who
had benefitted from the drug, were obviously reluctant to
stop taking it, (and) the most important thing about this
drug... is that there are none of the side-effects... that
have occured with AZT [azidothymidine/zidovudine]
(the drug approved for sale by the Food and Drug
Administration in the U.S.).”

Walrond said he believed that Kemron would prove to
bea cheaper drug than AZT, and would cost Caribbean
countries at least U.S. 3.50 dollars a day per patient. He
said Barbados for instance was spending Bds 10,000
dollars (one Bds dollar equals 50 U.S. cents) annually per
patient for AZT.

“If we could be satisfied that this drug would give the
same feeling of well being for an AIDS patient at a
quarter of the price, it would be certainly something we
ought to try in the full,” he added.



14 EAST ASIA

700 Infected With AIDS in Southern Provinces

BK0609015790 Bangkok BANGKOK POST in English
6 Sep 90 p 13

[Text] Some 700 people have been found to be infected
with the AIDS virus in Surat Thani and Songkhla
provinces, according to latest statistics from the Public
Health Ministry.

Surat Thani’s health chief Charoen Bunchai said 300
people had been tested positive in HIV blood tests in the
province, with Muang District having the highest
number of AIDS carriers, followed by Koh Samui Dis-
trict.

Intravenous drug addicts were the largest group among
the HIV-infected people, followed by prostitutes. “One
in every 50 service girls in Muang District was tested
positive,” he said.

“We appeal to government officials, state-enterprise
employees and ordinary citizens to stop frequenting
brothels or seeking any sexual services,” he said.

Expressing his concern over the spread of the AIDS virus
in Koh Samui District, Mr Charoen said the situation on
the island was alarming because the number of AIDS
carriers there was second only to that of Muang District.

Meanwhile, Deputy Public Health Minister Suthat
Ngoenmun said after his inspection tour of Zone 12
Communicable Diseases Control office in Songkhla that
398 people had been found to be infected with the AIDS
virus in the province.

Among the HIV-infected persons, prostitutes were the
biggest group, followed by drug addicts and local fish-
erman.

Mr Suthat said that despite a vigorous campaign against
AIDS, the ministry was still facing problems in checking
the spread of the virus among fishermen and prostitutes.
The first group usually frequents brothels without taking
any precautions when they come ashore.

To solve the problem, health officials are coordinating
with the Fishery Department’s radio centre to educate
fishermen and sailors about AIDS through radio pro-
grammes.

Impact of Proposed AIDS Law, Statistics Noted

90WE0313A Bangkok SIAM RAT SAPDA WICHAN
in Thai 29 Jul 90 pp 33-35

[Text] A draft AIDS bill will soon be submitted to
parliament for consideration and promulgation as law.
This bill calls for the establishment of an AIDS Control
Committee and an anti-AIDS fund. It contains measures
for controlling this disease and stipulates the rights of
those who have AIDS and who are suspected of having
the disease. It also stipulates penalties.

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Why Does This Bill Have To Be Submitted?

Statistics compiled in July 1990 show that 19,292 people
have the AIDS virus. Of these, 138 have begun exhib-
iting symptoms, and 45 have the disease. These are
official data based on surveys. But the Epidemiology
Division estimates that there are approximately 50,000
people with the AIDS virus. This indicates that it will be
difficult to stop the spread of this disease, which is now
spreading like a forest fire.

Mr. Suthat Ngoenmun, the deputy minister of public
health, said that the important feature of this draft law is
that this will help AIDS victims, because there is no law
to protect AIDS carriers. This draft law will also estab-
lish a welfare fund for AIDS victims. Besides this, AIDS
victims will be looked after by the government. They will
be able to live in welfare centers established by the
government. The draft law will also prohibit the disclo-
sure of private information about AIDS carriers.

Besides this, this draft law also contains the following
provisions:

Article 38 prohibits those responsible or hospital offi-
cials from refusing to treat AIDS patients or people
suspected of having AIDS unless they have good reason
or the patient is not yet in a life-threatening state.

Article 39 states that if the patient is pregnant, she has
the right to ask doctors to perform an abortion. At least
two doctors must agree on the suitability of this.

Article 40 prohibits employers from dismissing an
employee who has or who is suspected of having AIDS
unless the employee is engaged in work that could spread
the virus.

Mrs. Yenchit Raphiphat, the chairman of the Subcom-
mittee on Women’s and Youth Affairs, approves of this
draft law. She said that stipulating places where AIDS
carriers can live is meant to benefit the other tens of
millions of people in the country.

“There are still sections of this draft law to which I am
opposed. But if this bill is not passed, the activities of the
various units will not be focused on the same target,”
said Mrs Yenchit to SAPDA WICHAN.

Opposition Disagrees, State Power Will Infringe on
Individual Rights

Article 24 gives officials the authority to require those
who have or who are suspected of having AIDS to come
for an examination and receive treatment as stipulated.
And they will have to obtain permission from officials if
they want to move to another place for more than a
month or travel abroad. If they violate this provision of
the law, they could be fined up to 5,000 baht in accord
with Article 59. The 87 people and 43 organizations that
oppose this feel that this violates people’s rights, because
AIDS victims are not prisoners or criminals.



4 SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Antwi was speaking when the French Government
donated a 30,000-US dollar AIDS testing equipment to
the Ghana Government.

This is the second time the French Government is giving
Ghana AIDS testing equipment. In December 1988, it
gave Ghana specialized equipment and AIDS reagents
valued at 65,000 dollars.

MOZAMBIQUE

Appeal to Donors in Fight Against AIDS

90AF0450A Maputo NOTICIAS in Portuguese
4Jul 90 pt

[Text] Yesterday the vice minister of health, Dr. Igrejas
Campos, stated that the economic crisis confronting the
country has led to a budget cut for the social sectors,
especially health, that precludes their bearing the costs of
a large-scale epidemic, such as AIDS, without the
backing of the international community. Igrejas Campos
spoke at the opening of the second donors’ meeting
intended to mobilize financial resources for the second
phase activities of the three-year program to combat that
pandemic disease.

The Health Service needs $6 million to carry out the
activities program in this phase without major obstacles.
However, that sum was not obtained yesterday, although
all the donors have expressed their willingness to con-
tinue financing the program. At the conclusion of the
meeting, during the evening, it was announced that
$4.187 million had been made available, leaving those in
charge of the program partially satisfied.

According to Igrejas Campos, the economic difficulties
facing the country are reflected not only in the govern-
ment’s inability to provide primary health care to the
majority of the population, but also in its lack of capacity
to meet other fundamental health requirements. Thus,
the reduction in the budgets allocated to this sector
caused, for example, a decline in the per capita spending
during the period from 1980 to 1989 ranging from 4.5 to
nearly 80 cents on the dollar. This situation shows how
impoverished our country has been left, owing mainly to
the war, which has left thousands upon thousands of
Mozambicans without any health care and in extremely
wretched living conditions. Igrejas Campos claimed that
it was thanks to international aid that the National
Health Service could be kept operating throughout the
past 10 years. Otherwise, it would have been impossible
to render the minimal, sporadic assistance that the
service has managed to furnish in some parts of the
country.

The vice minister justified the need for international
assistance to combat AIDS, declaring that “we must
check the progress of the disease insofar as possible, to

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

prevent the number of victims from growing at acceler-
ated rates,” and so as to raise the response capacity of the
National Health Service, as is already occurring in some
countries.

Igrejas Campos argued: “We want to prevent the AIDS
epidemic from forcing us to concentrate all our meager
resources on it, which would prevent us from putting the
other health care at the disposal of the population in
need of it.” He emphasized that Mozambique “still
requires support from the international community,
which succeeded in responding so well to the financing
of the first phase.” Over 70 percent of the activity plans
for this first phase were implemented, despite the var-
ious difficulties besetting the personnel involved.

Then Igrejas Campos gave a general account of the
principal activities to be carried out during this phase,
underscoring the fact that the displaced, youths, and the
military will be involved in health care. He also
remarked that the government is bent on saving lives,
and during this phase will continue to concentrate efforts
on the primary health care level.

WHO Warns of AIDS Danger

However, the representative from the World Health
Organization [WHO], Dr. Boal, who also spoke during
the opening session, warned that AIDS represents a
danger to mankind. He claimed that by the year 2000 the
cumulative total of healthy carriers will probably
number from 15,000 to 20,000, or even more, if the
Asian form of infection from the human immunodefi-
ciency virus makes more rapid progress than the type
known to us now. At that point, from 75 to 80 percent of
the cases will be located in the developing countries.

The WHO representative revealed that, as of last June,
over 260,000 cases of the disease in the entire world had
been reported to WHO. Of that number, 23 percent, that
is, nearly 65,000, were in Africa, and 113 in Mozam-
bique. He said that WHO had expected at least 700,000
cases to have already have occurred, mainly because it is
believed that most of the victims have not been diag-
nosed or, if they have, the cases have not all been
reported. He noted that it is estimated that, during the
1990’s, the cumulative total of victims will reach one
million, and that by the year 2000 that number may total
five or even six million.

According to published data, it is estimated that there
are currently from 6,000 to 8,000 infected persons in the
world: that is, healthy carriers of the virus. This means
that one out of every 400 adults is already infected. The
infection is twice as common among men than among
women.

Dr. Boal pointed out that these figures taken in an
isolated manner may not hold great significance for the
man on the street, or even for the less well-informed
health worker. In fact, he remarked, one often hears it
asked why so many resources are devoted to a single
disease, when in the underdeveloped countries there are



20 EAST EUROPE

Hence the cases of refusal to treat virus-infected patients
at clinics and hospitals, and even such inhuman behavior
as the discharging of sick or beaten people from hospitals
whose personnel learn that they are HIV carriers. A
particularly cruel instance bears reminding: in June 1989
the ZOMO [Mobile Detachments of Citizens’ Militia]
left at the doorstep of a hospital on Stepinska Street a
maltreated young man, a HIV carrier. The physician
who examined his x-rays hurried so much to discharge
him that he failed to notice injuries to the skull which on
the following day were readily noticed by an ambulance-
riding physician. As for the nurses, they threw bandages
at the nearly unconscious young man, expecting him to
bandage himself.

Hence also the fallacious (medieval, as it were) opinions
of certain representatives of medical personnel, e.g., a
nurse’s comment at a session of the people’s council in
Konstancin that the disease is transmitted by air, mos-
quitoes, or squirrels.

A study, “Social Conditions Underlying AIDS,” com-
pleted in 1989 by Drs. Zofia Slonska, Antonina
Ostrowska, and Marek Kozak, indicates that Poles are
aware that AIDS is a threatening disease (97 percent of
responses), but a majority of the respondents did not
distinguish situations in which infection is possible from
non-threatening situations.

More than 50 percent fear infection from using the same
tableware as AIDS patients, and 25 percent believe that
the disease can be caught by shaking hands. Despite this
shocking ignorance about AIDS, as many as 70 percent
of the respondents refused to know more about it,
believing that they already knew enough about it. Simi-
larly, as many as 70 percent did not feel personally
threatened, perceiving this disease as a problem only to
certain social groups. According to a survey by Dr.
Marek Kozak, 71.7 percent of the respondents consider
AIDS to be among five greatest perils to mankind and
16.5 percent believe it to be the greatest peril, but only
two percent believe that this disease may be the greatest
peril to Poland.

Underestimation of this disease is also demonstrated by
the fact that only 2.6 percent feared catching it and as
many as 40 percent saw no such danger to themselves.

Such a perception of the disease promotes the pressure to
isolate infected victims in the illusory belief that this
would halt the spread of the disease. When asked by Dr.
Kozak how to deal with infected victims, 38.7 percent of
the respondents answered, “Isolate them.”

The lack of knowledge about AIDS among physicians
was confirmed by a poll carried out among the medical
community in Lublin. Of 56 physicians working at
clinical hospitals as many as 66 percent contended that
the infection can be caught by kissing; more than 16
percent thought that it can be caught by sharing table
cutlery; more than seven percent thought that it could be
caught by shaking a patient’s hand; and 3.6 percent, by
staying in the same room with the patient.

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

The only consoling finding was, the three authors of
these polls noted, that a majority of the physicians polled
were opposed to segregating HIV-infected persons.

The Perils

The state of sanitation at hospitals and other health
service centers has reached its nadir. They treat patients
like furniture that is in the way. The poorly paid per-
sonnel are not interested in the fate of the patients; they
just do not care. And owing to manpower shortages, the
cleanliness of rooms and equipment leaves something to
be desired.

It is not without reason that in the public perception
medical treatment is to be avoided, because it might not
be survived by a healthy person. We keep hearing about
people in hospitals who get infected by diseases trans-
mitted by poorly sterilized equipment (jaundice caught
from contaminated syringes) or poor care (pneumonia).
There is a scarcity of protective and medical equipment,
such as protective gloves (which this year are supposedly
to be in abundant supply), syringes, and disposable
needles—they are available in stores but health service
establishments do not always have the funds to purchase
them; there also are special paper strips with inscriptions
to the effect that the equipment was properly sterilized.
Although they are inexpensive, the authorities somehow
are not eager to buy them or to activate their production.

Thus, the fears that infection with AIDS may be caught
at hospitals and other health service centers are justified.

Another peril is, as demonstrated by the occurrences at
Kaweczyn, Konstancin, and Gloskow, the growing insti-
tutional factors resulting in the subjective treatment of
individuals and social groups. A new factor has also
appeared as a result of the democratization and the
recovery of feelings of civic self-worth by Poles, namely,
the freedom to be a nay-sayer. This may sound like a
paradox, but already at the threshold of its existence
democracy has unleashed dormant social phobias.

This desire for self-realization and for making decisions
without interference from “the top,” combined with
ordinary stupidity, ignorance, and fear, has resulted in
an explosive mixture whose effect was the effective
protests of local inhabitants against situating clinics or
homes for HIV-infected persons in their communities.

Last fall one such clinic, established with substantial
funds on Muranowska Street in Warsaw, had thus had to
be closed. The then party-member mayor of Warsaw
succumbed to the pressure of the neighborhood council
and, as a result, the AIDS clinic is still looking for a new
home. Its recent siting in the building of a hospital on
Leszno Street also seems precarious in view of the
protest by the neighborhood people, even though the
building is located at a distance from residential build-
ings and locating the clinic there can in no way imperil
the neighborhood (separate garbage utilization, etc.).



JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 OCTOBER 1990

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JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

This was disclosed at an AIDS symposium on the south
coast of Natal on Monday [3 September].

Speaking at the aerospace medical society’s symposium
at Banana Beach, Dr E.B. Peters, the airline’s medical
director, said that SAA “certainly will not deny that we
have HIV-positive individuals who are still flying”.

The symposium, attended by more than 70 pilots, phy-
sicians or pilot doctors, on Monday focussed on AIDS in
the aviation world. It will discuss aircraft accident inves-
tigation and prevention on Tuesday. [passage omitted]

No National Research Program on AIDS;
Researchers Lacking

MB0609172290 Johannesburg SAPA in English
1410 GMT 6 Sep 90

{Text] There is no research taking place in South Africa
aimed at finding an AIDS vaccine or cure and the only
local research in this field is aimed at improving
methods to diagnose the disease.

SABC [South African Broadcasting Corporation] radio
news reports that the president of the Medical Research
Council [MRC], Dr. Phillip van Heerden, said in an
interview that research on AIDS was left to overseas
countries due to the shortage of skilled researchers in
South Africa.

He said South Africa had over the years lost good
scientists to other countries and the MRC was engaged in
recruiting researchers to come to South Africa.

Highest AIDS Figures: Natal Urban Males

90WE0239A Johannesburg SOWETAN in English
19 Jun 90 p 5

[Text] Cape Town (SAPA)—Recently research by local
AIDS experts has confirmed that the major growth of the
South African AIDS epidemic is among urban hetero-
sexuals—and the black population in particular—with
Natal reporting most cases of the disease.

Writing in the latest issue of the SOUTH AFRICAN
MEDICAL JOURNAL, Prof B D Schoub, of the depart-
ment of Virology at the University of the Witwatersrand,
said the rate of increase appeared to be showing the same
pattern as the rest of Africa.

This highlighted the urgent need for research into social
factors like migrant labour and poor socio-economic
conditions, which contributed to the spread of sexually-
transmitted diseases.

He said the epidemic was showing signs of levelling off in
other high-risk groups, such as the male homosexual
population, although this group was still responsible for
some 63 percent of all AIDS cases in South Africa.

Results of research up to the end of January this year
revealed a total of 308 AIDS cases in South Africa, of
which 195 were white male homosexuals.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 7

The next largest group, of 63 heterosexuals, had a
black/white ratio of seven to one.

Infant AIDS Fatalities in Soweto

90WE0292A Johannesburg THE CITIZEN in English
18 Jul 90 p 11

[Text] Twelve infants between the ages of one month and
2 % years have died of AIDS in the past year at
Baragwanath Hospital.

A paediatrician at the hospital, Dr Ian Friedland, said
more than 30 babies with HIV-infection had been diag-
nosed at the hospital since May last year. Twelve had
died, but he was uncertain about the condition of the
other babies as they were no longer brought to the
hospital.

Dr Friedland said the infants had contracted the disease
from their mothers and ruled out the possibility that they
could have contracted it through blood transfusions.

He said specific treatment for HIV-infection in infants
was not available at Baragwanath Hospital and that only
symptoms could be treated.

Dr Friedland said there was an increase in the incidence
of HIV-infection in children with seven cases having
been diagnosed at the hospital last year and 25 this year.

TANZANIA

Kemron’s Anti-AIDS Claims Questioned

90WE0293A Dar es Salaam FAMILY MIRROR
in English Jul 90 pp 1-2

[Text] In May we brought our readers a world exclusive:
Kemron is a hoax and the Kenyan researchers who claim
to have invented it are self-seeking charlatans. We thank
T. Kimani for his letter on behalf of the Kenyan High
Commissioner to Tanzania which appeared in our last
edition, and take this opportunity to provide some
support for the “unfounded allegations” of which the
writer accuses us.

Fact: At the Sixth International AIDS Conference held
in San Francisco in June no mention was made of
Kemron, in spite of the presence of a Kenyan delegation.
Yet at this conference, which was widely reported in the
world press, about 2,500 research abstracts on current
AIDS research were presented. If Kemron is the wonder
drug, it is curious that it is currently receiving so little
attention in the international medical community. Or is
there a conspiracy against Kenyan medical researchers?
Readers will remember us reporting that Dr Koech et al
also failed to defend their discovery at an earlier major
World Health Organization meeting held in Geneva
Why? Because they neither discovered the drug nor
undertook adequate trials to establish its effectiveness.

Fact: The evidence for the effectiveness of Kemron is
based on incomplete and hastily presented findings,



6 SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

The chief epidemiologist in the Ministry of Health, Dr
Steven Titus, said the latest reported AIDS cases brought
Namibia’s cumulative total to 311, with 40 AIDS-related
deaths reported since 1986. Five of the deaths occured
this year.

SOUTH AFRICA

Minister Rejects Conservative Allegations on
AIDS

MB2607143190 Johannesburg SAPA in English
1307 GMT 26 Jul 90

[Text] Pretoria—Blood donors are carefully selected and
all blood is thoroughly tested for HIV (human immune-
deficiency virus), the minister of national health and
population development, Dr. Rina Venter, said on
Thursday.

In a statement released in Pretoria, she said allegations
made by the CP [Conservative Party] that blood was
transfused and distributed “without respect of persons,”
were definitely not correct.

Dr. Venter had publicly on numerous occasions stressed
the dangers of the so-called window effect.

“This effect plays a role with persons already infected by
the HIV and the government is satisfied that all possible
efforts are used to exclude infected persons from the
blood transfusion service.

“The fact that no transmission of the HIV by way of
South African blood or blood products occurred, is proof
of the effectiveness of the control measures.”

She said the cases of HIV-transmission by way of blood
products occurred through products from foreign coun-
tries before thorough testing was implemented.

“Combating AIDS is the responsibility of every person
and statements with unscientific allegations do not con-
tribute to information which the public needs in order to
fulfil this responsibility,” Dr. Venter said.

Official Details Cape AIDS Statistics, Fatalities

MB1209055690 Johannesburg SAPA in English
2014 GMT 11 Sep 90

[Text] Cape Town—Dr Michael Popkiss, the Cape Town
city council’s medical officer of health, reported this
week that 71 cases of full-blown AIDS had occurred in
the western Cape, 39 of whom had died.

He said in a report to the amenities and health com-
mittee this week this was the total number of AIDS cases
from the beginning of the epidemic in 1982 up to August
8 this year, the latest figure available.

According to statistics issued by the Department of
National Health and Population Development in May

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

this year, there had been 68 AIDS cases reported in the
entire Cape Province, of whom 39 had died.

Researcher Discusses Pietermaritzburg AIDS
Figures

MB1608061590 Johannesburg SAPA in English
2040 GMT 15 Aug 90

[Text] Pietermaritzburg—Two people in every hundred
in Pietermaritzburg will be infected with the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and R [rand] 40-billion
will be needed to care for AIDS sufferers in South Africa
by the turn of the century.

These startling details were disclosed on Wednesday [15
August] by visiting health psychologist, Dr Stanton New-
man, who practices at the University College and Mid-
dlesex School of Medicine in London.

He was talking at the 15th Natal University lecture in
Pietermaritzburg on the subject of AIDS.

Existing Pietermaritzburg AIDS figures, Dr Newman
said, were likely to double by 1991, and it was essential
that money was made available immediately for educa-
tion and advertising campaigns to persuade people to
change their sexual behaviour—the “only route” to
combating the disease.

“We have no time to lose. The number of people dying of
AIDS by the end of the century will be twice the
available number of hospital beds in South Africa at
present,” said Dr Stanton.

Homosexuals overseas had shown that a dramatic
change in sexual behaviour had resulted in a marked
decrease of 80 percent in the incidence of AIDS within
that community, according to Dr Stanton.

This had occurred because sex was an open topic in this
group, and safe sex, especially using condoms, was now
practiced.

Forty percent of HIV positive carriers in South Africa
were now heterosexuals, and it was essential the subject
was discussed openly in this community.

Dr Stanton, who studied at the University of Natal,
Durban, and now heads a research team in health
psychology at the London Hospital, added that the only
way to educate rural communities was through indepen-
dent, nationally co-ordinated education campaigns
involving people of all political persuasions, in order that
this was not seen as a political weapon.

10 Percent of AIDS Fatalities Were Airways
Employees

MB0509051590 Johannesburg SAPA in English
1151 GMT 4 Sep 90

[Excerpt] Durban—Of the 215 people who have died of
AIDS in South Africa to date, 26—more than 10 per-
cent—were South African Airways’ [SAA] employees.



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

AIDS. Therefore, I am convinced that regardless of how
effective the medicines are which we have devised, and
regardless of how intricate the apparatus we have
invented, all our efforts will be blocked, as it has already
been the case more than once. Why? Indeed, it is only
because we are staff members of a ‘competing’ organiza-
tion.”

“The result is like an anecdote of black humor. A
hospital attendant rolls an old woman into the morgue,
and she wails ‘What are you doing?! Where are you
taking me?!’ The muscular fellow replies, ‘Quiet,
grandma! Once the head physician has said to take you
to the morgue, he means the morgue. Self-healing, they
say, is bad for you.”

And that is the way it is. I am convinced that a person
doomed to an inevitable death has the right to any, even
an insane, attempt. This includes that which is unsanc-
tioned by the Ministry of Health.“

“Not having the support of this ministry, you are almost
working underground. And in spite of this, you have
great ideas about the task which up to now has been
beyond the capacity of reliable scientific institutes. How
is it that you have succeeded?”

“Enthusiasm for the goal. There are molecular biologists,
geneticists, virologists, physicists, mathematicians, and
chemists in our group. All of them are working without
pay, outside of working hours. Where do we get the
reagents? We have to beg, almost to steal. Such is life.
But most offensive of all is that valuable time is slipping
through our fingers, because work has been dragged out
because of unbearable conditions. Say that we urgently
needed a certain kind of protein for experiments. But it
can be acquired only in foreign currency. And where are
we to obtain it? Naturally, in principle it is possible to
synthesize the necessary protein ourselves. Only this will
take a year or two at a minimum. Only foreign charitable
organizations have responded to our requests for help,
but they also have provided money.”

“Certainly, one can also understand them. Recently, so
many charlatans have multiplied that you do not know at
what moment they will cheat you. Mackler is such a one.
He also has promised to deliver humanity from AIDS.
What then? All of his lofty phrases and scientific com-
putations have proved to be an ordinary fake.”

But no one insists that they trust us without reserva-
tion—let an independent competent commission eval-
uate the work. Even by invitation of Western specialists.
We are ready to produce the goods personally. And in
general it would not be bad to form a special committee
in the USSR for combatting AIDS with broad rights and
possibilities.“

“Why such extreme measures? Indeed, judging by
reports in the press, the AIDS epidemic threatens the
USSR not so very soon—in five years.”

SOVIET UNION 27

“But it is already going at top speed! Is it really possible
to take seriously the official figure of HIV carriers—
something greater than 500 people? I dare them to
confirm this, for there are considerably more of them!
And this is the reason why. The number of virus carriers
in the world is approximately greater by a factor of 40
than the people with obvious symptoms of the disease.
This means that we have no fewer than 29,000 infected
people according to the most conservative estimates. It
would appear that it is necessary to sound the alarm and
to rouse the people, but the leaders of the Ministry of
Health and of the academies extensively discuss only
preventive measures. If this continues, by the year 2010
half of the population of the USSR will have died. This
is a worst case, and the best case is that we shall lose as
many people from AIDS as in the two world wars.”

“But can it really be said that generally nothing is being
done to combat AIDS? In fact, we purchase disposable
syringes from abroad, and we are setting up production
at plants in the USSR.”

“Neither syringes, disposable blood transfusion systems,
nor preservatives solve the problems. The West is an
example of this. There these products are in surplus. And
nevertheless, AIDS advances precipitously.”

“Just the same, you also do not dispense with preventive
work. Also with improved diagnostics. Indeed, exam-
ining the blood bank and testing people for AIDS is
major, serious work.”

“What are you talking about?! We ‘probe’ for HIV from
the presence of the antibody of the virus in the blood.
But the Americans recently studied diagnosis of the
disease by another indication—the genes themselves of
the virus. And what was detected? In 16 out of 18
infected people, there was virus in the blood, but there
were no antibodies. This means that all our diagnostics,
excuse me, aren’t worth a hoot. It means a donor who has
‘passed’ can be infected with AIDS and calmly give
blood. It means that hundreds and thousands of people
who have passed ‘inspection’ and being assured of their
own health will infect all and everything around them.
And indeed the latent form of AIDS can have a threshold
up to twenty years!”

What resources do our collective need in a short period
of time to set up the experimental production of reagents
and toxin- receptors?“

“For a three year program $450,000 and about 300,000-
500,000 rubles.”

“And I believe that we are obligated to pay such a price
in the attempt to save us from AIDS. It is necessary to
take the risk, otherwise [AIDS will continue to spread].

Editor’s note. We ask people who are infected with the
AIDS virus not to contact B. Mednikov for he still
cannot help you at this time. On the other hand, it is
possible to help scientists. Organizations, enterprises,
and private persons wishing to make their contribution



26 SOVIET UNION

Membrane Toxin Receptor for Treatment of AIDS

90WE0265A Moscow RABOCHAYA TRIBUNA
in Russian 17 Jul p 4

[Article by N. Baranovskiy: “An Illegal Discovery? A
Deadly Blow Against AIDS is Being Prepared in Soviet
Laboratories. But Will It Be Applied?”; First paragraph
is RABOCHAYA TRIBUNA introduction, and last
paragraph is editor’s note]

[Text] Millions dead, tens of millions infected—these are
the forecasts of immunology specialists for the beginning
of the third millennium. In the Soviet Union alone by
the year 2000, according to the most conservative esti-
mates, the virus will “mow down” no fewer than 150,000
people. Therefore, it is not necessary to explain with
what hope people read every new report about a victory,
even the most insignificant, over the terrible disease. But
in this fatal combat, up to now we have not taken the
offensive and have only fallen back. The majority of
scientists believe that an effective preparation against
AIDS will be developed in not less than ten years. Only
we do not have this time.

And suddenly there is unexpected news: a group of
Soviet scientists seem to be on the right track. Our
correspondent met with one of the members of this
informal collective, B. Mednikov, doctor of biological
sciences, a prominent geneticist, and a staff member of
the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Bioorganic
Chemistry of Moscow State University.

“I shall tell you right away,” says Boris Mikhaylovich,
“that at the present time we cannot give a one-hundred
percent guarantee of recovery from AIDS. Nevertheless,
I personally am eighty to ninety percent confident of
success. Even now, by periodically killing the active form
of the virus in the blood, it is possible to extend the life
ofa patient indefinitely. And within a year and a half we
hope to develop a method also which makes it possible to
treat the latent form of AIDS.”

“How do you intend to do this? In fact, scientists in all
countries have racked their brains for years on how to
conquer the terrible virus. And up to now they have had
nothing in particular to boast about. Even the recent
attempt of Americans to separate AIDS by heating the
blood of patients does not inspire hope: the method is
extremely laborious and hazardous. Thus, probably, the
route to a cure lies in vaccines and antibiotics, as in the
past?” “No, that is a blind alley. And this is the reason
why. AIDS is an autoimmune disease. That is, the
protective system of man ”devours“ the organism in
error. The fact is that the proteins and genes of the virus
are surprisingly similar to those of the host. Antibodies
in such a situation probably are lost and attack the
healthy cells of the patient. I came to this conclusion
purely theoretically, although computations by Soviet
Prof A. Kulberg and the Belgian scientist Notias confirm
it. In addition, the latter performed very important work
by dissecting about 20 patients who had died of AIDS.
And what did he find? All had damage to the thymus

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

gland, which coordinates the protective functions of the
organism. Therefore, possibly the development of vac-
cines is not only a useless but even harmful approach.”
“It happens that the majority of virologists are wasting
time in vain by trying to obtain a miracle vaccine? And
what do you have against antibiotics? For example,
azidothymizine? Actually, this preparation is widely
used throughout the whole world, and now we are also
setting up its production.”

“It is completely useless. The whole secret is that the
virus very rapidly adapts itself to antibiotics.”

“This means that an unusual weapon is required to
combat an unusual foe? Do you have it?”

“Yes, we have developed our own preparation—a toxin-
receptor. The West also does not use anything like it, but
their medicine is based on metabolic poisons. They cope
wonderfully only with one task—they damage infected
cells. And, alas, coping with the harmful virus is still
beyond their grasp. Therefore, we have counted on
membrane toxins— these hunters for AIDS readily
destroy the membranes with which the viruses are cov-
ered like armor. And then there is no mercy for the
insidious enemy.”

“As I have understood it, it is possible by means of these
toxins to cure successfully only the active form of AIDS.
But indeed, the latent form still remains. That is the
whole point of it. Indeed, up until now the hidden
disease will not be ‘uprooted’ from the organism, and a
person will not recover.”

“For this we also decided to use chemisorption (blood
purifying) columns. Ordinarily their use is for curing
acute attacks of schizophrenia and strong poisonings.
What is the principle of its action? An antibody is taken
which is ‘hooked’ to some virus or protein, and chemi-
cally ‘fastened’ to special solid granules and together
with them is placed in a special vessel. Then blood is
passed through it. At that moment the antibody-hunters
also extract the pathogenic components from it. Some-
thing like chemical purification takes place. And each
disease needs its own ‘stain remover.’ For example, we
wash off a grease stain with acetone, and a fruit juice
stain with oxalic acid. It is like that here: one preparation
is required for treating schizophrenia, and another for
some kind of hormonal disease. And so—why not build
a special ‘stain remover’ to capture the AIDS virus? This
is problem which we have been working on. We have
developed a reagent which is suitable not only for curing
AIDS, but also T-leukemia.”

“That is, is it possible to consider that humanity is saved
from this terrible disease? AIDS is conquered? Indeed, if
your computations are correct, as early as a year or two
from now, the preparations which you have developed
perhaps will be put into industrial production?”

“It is not quite that simple. There is such a thing as the
monopoly of the Ministry of Health. The matter is
clear—it also extends its mission to an attempt to cure



IPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

WHO Statistics Predict Increase in AIDS Cases

AB0409131090 Yaounde Domestic Service in English
01800 GMT 31 Aug 90

[Text] The World Health Organization has released
statistics on AIDS cases in Cameroon. The report says
that as of last July the 30th, 195 AIDS cases were
registered, with 156 patients dead. These statistics show
an increase of 40 cases over a period of four months, that
is from April to July 1990. The WHO report released by
the Ministry of Public Health also revealed that one
percent of the population is HIV positive, which the
ministry said indicates there will be a significant rise in
the number of AIDS cases in the months to come.

DJIBOUTI

Eight AIDS Deaths

AB2808 102890 London BBC World Service in English
1615 GMT 23 Aug 90

[From the “Focus on Africa” program]

[Text] The Djibouti health authorities have issued new
statistics of victims of the killer disease AIDS. Two years
ago, the government admitted that it had a problem with
AIDS and set up programs to fight and contain it. With
the latest figures, Mohamed Ahia telexed this report
from Djibouti. [Begin studio announcer recording]

According to Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Hassan at the Min-
istry of Health, there were currently 21 people in hospi-
tals with AIDS. Dr. Ahmed said that the disease has been
monitored in Djibouti since 1988, and since then eight
people are known to have died. The fi?? case known in
Djibouti came to light in 1986 and as a result of this a
program to investigate and fight it was put into action.
When testing for the disease first began a total of 190
people were found to have the HIV virus.

The World Health Organization, the European Commu-
nity, and foreign governments, including Italy, France,
Luxembourg, and the United States have all given assis-
tance to Djibouti in its fight against the disease. Dele-
gates from these countries and organizations attended a
meeting in April this year to discuss further funding of
these projects in Djibouti. As a result of this program,
Djibouti is self-reliant when it comes to carrying out tests
for the disease, and Djibouti’s hospitals take all neces-
sary precautions to prevent infection. [end recording]

GABON

Seminar Trains Technicians To Screen Blood

90WE0268A Libreville L’UNION in French
13 Jun 90 p 3

[Article by Annick-Brigitte Bouma: “Preventing Trans-
mission of AIDS Through the Blood”; first paragraph is
L’UNION introduction}

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 3

[Text] Blood is still unfortunately a major way HIV (the
AIDS virus) is transmitted in Africa, particularly in the
most remote areas where facilities are lacking.

As part of its medium-term plan (MTP) initiated with
the collaboration of WHO, the National Anti-AIDS
Program has organized a blood-transfusion training sem-
inar for laboratory technicians. Scheduled to last three
days, from 11 to 14 June, the seminar was officially
opened yesterday by the state secretary to the minister of
Public Health, Population, Social Affairs, and National
Solidarity, Mr. Kakou-Mayaza. Other health officials
attending included Dr. M’Ba Jean-Remy, director of the
National Blood Transfusion Center, and Mr. Huaux, an
adviser of the EC delegation. The seminar is being
entirely funded by the EC, through the donation of
materials such as cold rooms, blood packets, bench-top
centrifuges, etc.

Throughout the course a new method for detecting HIV
in blood will be introduced. The purpose is to limit
transfusions done without prior inspection. The proce-
dure, which aims to ensure the safety of patients under-
going transfusions, should not be considered a definitive
diagnosis of AIDS, but rather a “purging of dubious
blood.” Aware that efforts to combat AIDS will be
ineffective if carried out in isolated fashion, the different
health officials gathered the laboratory technicians from
Gabon’s nine provinces. Of the 22 seminar participants,
16 are provincial lab workers. The latter will be guided
by doctors, who split the work schedule into two phases.
Mornings will be devoted to theoretical presentations,
and afternoons to practical exercises in the form of
workshops.

The 10 topics selected center around methods for trans-
fusing blood, blood conservation and expiration criteria,
ABO systems, looking for hemolysines in O donors, and
the magnitude of problems involved in donating blood
in Gabon, among others. All of them are topics that
should, in principle, provide new information to the
seminar participants. Especially as the seropositivity rate
is climbing sharply: 8,000 cases according to the 1989
count, and 10,000 cases according to predictions for
1991.

GHANA

Increase in AIDS Cases

AB2509134090 Dakar PANA in English
1310 GMT 25 Sep 90

[Text] Accra—AIDS cases in Ghana went up to 1,732 at
the end of July, Dr Phyllis Antwi, coordinator of the
West African country’s AIDS control programme
announced Tuesday in Accra.

The figure is 39.6 percent up on the figures for January
when 1,240 cases were reported. There were only 26
cases reported in the country in 1986.



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

various other complications. At this point the symptoms
were much more severe than they would be for a normal
person because the victim lacked resistance. In the end
the victim would die. The AIDS victims in Phayao
Province had not reached the ARC stage, and there were
only two in the second stage. The fact that there were no
victims in the ARC stage was felt to be one reason why
some who were promiscuous were not afraid of con-
tracting AIDS - they had not seen the terrible state of
those in the ARC stage. [passage omitted]

Anti-AIDS Measures, Addicts by Region

90WE0314E Bangkok SIAM RAT in Thai
2 Aug 90 pp 1, 2

[Excerpts] [passage omitted] Mr. Suchat Mongkhon-
phan, director of the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace,
revealed that irradiating blood had seen widespread use.
The irradiating equipment was nearly as small as a
refrigerator. It could be used to irradiate blood in
pouches to destroy the white blood cells. With this
procedure no heat or other process was needed. At
present more than 250 blood irradiating devices had
been set up in the United States, and they were being
produced at the rate of 50 per year.

Mr. Suchat also said that the AIDS virus and the
hepatitus virus, which might be present in blood dona-
tions, could be eliminated by irradiation. This technique
for eliminating microbes in blood donations could only
be employed when only the red blood cells were to be
used. It could be used on red blood cells which were
frozen or dehydrated in order to render them free of
viruses. Irradiating blood was felt to be a method which
would create confidence both with those processing the
blood and those receiving the blood and would reduce
the risk of infectious disease among patients who lacked
resistance.

Dr. Thira Ramsut, director of the Department of Com-
municable Disease Control, yesterday (1 August) at the
Thanyarak Hospital said of the problem of AIDS among
drug addicts that as of 31 July the data on those with
AIDS indicated that drug addicts with AIDS were dis-
tributed throughout the country. The central region had
the most with 8,402 cases, the South had 1,899 cases, the
East had 1,320 cases and the North had the least with
955 cases.

As for the percentage of AIDS victims who were drug
addicts in each region, it was found that 84 percent of the
AIDS victims in the South were drug addicts, in the
central region 83 percent were drug addicts, in the East
75 percent were drug addicts, in the Northeast 42
percent were drug addicts and in the North 29 percent
were drug addicts.

The percentage of AIDS victims who were prostitutes in
each region was: 40 percent in the North, 23 percent in
the Northeast and less than 10 percent in the other
regions.

EAST ASIA 17

The director of the Department of Communicable Dis-
ease Control also said that their evaluation of the battle
against AIDS for the last six months (December 1989 to
June 1990) indicated that the incidence of AIDS infec-
tion among drug addicts had increased from 41 to 46
percent - the incidence had increased just five percent in
six months, which indicated that this group had learned
fairly well how to prevent AIDS infection. Among
female prostitutes it was found that the incidence of
AIDS infection had increased from 3.5 percent to 6.8
percent or had almost doubled. It was also found that
among promiscuous men who had venereal disease the
incidence had increased from 2.7 percent to 3.3 percent.

Dr. Thira said that the percentage of drug addicts with
AIDS in 1986 was 27 percent, in 1987 was 71 percent, in
1988 was 89 percent, in 1989 was 66 percent and in the
first half of this year was 52 percent. [passage omitted]

Official Optimistic About AIDS Trends

90WE0314F Bangkok DAILY NEWS in Thai 2 Aug 90
pp 1,21

[Excerpt] [passage omitted] Professor Dr. Somsak War-
akhamin, an Undersecretary of Public Health, after
having presided over the ceremony ending a seminar in
Chonburi Province on coordinating efforts to control
AIDS with family planning efforts, told reporters that
the AIDS situation in 1990 had in fact improved over
that of 1989. In 1989 more than 10,000 people were
discovered to have AIDS who showed no symptoms. In
1990 there have been only 3,000 new cases reported. In
1989 there were 40 more cases of people sick with AIDS
while in 1990 there have been only six more. All factors
indicated improvement. In its efforts to control AIDS
the Ministry of Public Health had cooperated completely
with private groups. There were not more than 30,000
people with the AIDS virus.

Dr. Somsak also said that in March 1990 officials of the
World Health Organization came to Thailand and sur-
veyed the incidence of AIDS among the Thai people.
They estimated that there were not more than 35,000
AIDS cases. Other estimates have been as high as 60,000
cases or 700,000 cases. Those estimates were made by
applying the mathematical rule of three to figures
derived from examining more than 1.5 million people in
high-risk groups. They discovered 19,000 people with
AIDS who showed no symptoms. If this rate were
multiplied by our population of more than 50 million,
the figure for AIDS victims would be as large as those
other estimates. The 1.5 million people we examined
were drug addicts, prostitutes and gays etc. If they were
used to represent the average person, the result would
not be accurate.

He said that Thailand might be the only country in the
world which released a figure for those with the AIDS
virus. Other countries generally have kept these figures
secret and been unwilling to release them for fear of
hurting their tourist image. He did not know of other
countries which did as Thailand did. Generally each


34 WEST EUROPE

IRELAND

Specialist Warns Sexually Transmitted Diseases
on Rise

90WE0114 Dublin IRISH INDEPENDENT in English
24 May 90 p II

[Article by Stephen McGrath: “Sex Disease Rate Rise—
Despite AIDS Scare”]}

[Text] A leading specialist in the treatment of sexually
transmitted diseases has warned that a number of serious
illnesses, including syphillis, which declined as a result of
the AIDS epidemic, are again on the increase in Ireland.

Dr. Derek Freedman, a lecturer at UCD, said there had
been a decline in the incidence of syphillis, gonorrhoea,
genital warts and herpes up until the end of 1989.

However, so far this year he had noticed a relapse in this
trend with increases in a number of infections among the
poor and educationally deprived segments of the com-
munity.

“People are swinging back to their old habits. There is
fear of AIDS but with a little drink it is soon forgotten,”
he said.

There should be no let up in public education and
awareness programmes about AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases, he declared. “‘You don’t see com-
panies stopping advertising of washing powders for
example after a couple of months. They keep up the
advertising so the message continues to get across,” he
said.

Dr. Freedman will address the summer scientific
meeting of the Faculty of Community Medicine of the
Royal College of Physicians of Ireland today.

Another speaker, Dr. Christine Hayes, Registrar with the
Eastern Health Board, will reveal that a survey of
patients attending an STD clinic showed that the mean
number of different partners in the previous year was 2.9
with a maximum of 20.

Dr. Emer MacHale, Acting Director of Community Care
at the Western Health Board, will disclose that another
survey of patients in that area revealed that they had an
average of 2.4 partners a year.

Dr. Hayes interviewed 100 men and 50 women, 80
percent aged between 20 and 40. Half of the patients
believed the source of their infection to be a casual
partner, with another quarter not knowing who the
source was.

Nine out of ten patients named condoms as a method of
prevention of STD but 42 percent said they never used
them and only 15 percent said they always did.

IJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Dr. MacHale’s study of the epidemiology of STD in the
Western Health Board area was carried out from March,
1984, to November, 1987, with 572 patients inter-
viewed. Most were single, younger than 30 and most
likely to have met a person with whom they had a casual
relationship in a disco/pub. Some 42 percent were not
using contraception.

Dr. MacHale’s summary says the patients were highly
mobile and infections were acquired world-wide. Some
68 percent of those interviewed had a pathological
condition necessitating treatment.

SWITZERLAND

Increasing Number of Countries Requiring AIDS
Test

90WE0278A Geneva JOURNAL DE GENEVE
in French 6 Jul 90 p 15

[First paragraph is JOURNAL DE GENEVE lead;
second paragraph, its introduction]

[Text] The Middle Eastern and Eastern countries are
particularly restrictive and the United States is refus-
ing—but without requesting a test—HIV-positive tour-
ists and AIDS patients.

The list of countries requiring an AIDS test for for-
eigners remaining more than 3 months within their
borders is growing. Legislations are even getting tougher
since some countries, such as Egypt or Bulgaria, have
decreased the length of the visit to one month, whereas
in other places, HIV-positive people are immediately
turned back, according to a list published on 3 July by
the Automobile Club of Switzerland (ACS).

Eastern Europe remains among the most restrictive
destinations when it comes to this matter. Thus the
USSR and the GDR require a negative test for visits of
more than 3 months, HIV-infected people being system-
atically turned back. Foreigners wishing to settle or study
in Poland and Czechoslovakia are being given tests upon
arriving in the country.

In Western Europe, Finland and Belgium are the only
countries requiring a test, the former for visits of over 3
months, the latter for students applying for scholarships.

Legislation is also strict in most Middle Eastern coun-
tries, particularly in Iraq, where travelers staying for
more than 5 days are subjected to a test. In some
countries, legislation is even bound by considerations
based on suspicion.

Thus Cyprus requires a checkup test for foreigners
wishing to work in nightclubs and cabarets, whereas
Greece has reservations about artists whose state of
health appears suspicious. As for South Korea, it
requires a test for men unaccompanied by their wives.



IJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Complex Situation in the USA

So far, according to the ACS list compiled from infor-
mation released by the Federal Department of Foreign
Affairs, there has been no restriction in Latin America.
The situation is more complex in the USA.

Candidates for immigration are the only ones subjected to a
mandatory test. Entry into the United States remains nev-
ertheless forbidden to HIV-positive tourists, or AIDS
patients. But controls are difficult, the authorities having to
settle for the traveler’s written declaration.

WEST EUROPE 35

However, cases of nonadmittance have been mentioned
by AIDS-prevention associations. They involved people
carrying AZT, so far, the only medicine officially recog-
nized as slowing down the development of the disease.

These restrictions have unavoidably lead to finding ways
to circumvent them. Therefore, according to the Associ-
ation Dialogai of Geneva, a traffic in false HIV-negative
certificates has opened up in Paris. So far, according toa
representative of the Anti-AIDS Association, no such
traffic has been detected in Switzerland.



IJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

CHILE

1300 People Infected With AIDS Virus

PY0509151090 Santiago LA TERCERA DE LA HORA
in Spanish 25 Aug 90 p 17

[Summary] Dr. Cecilia Sepulveda, an immunologist at the
University of Chile Medical School, reported yesterday that
1,300 people have been infected with the AIDS virus in
Chile, of which 237 have developed the disease.

She noted that these figures were released by the Public
Health Institute and pointed out that she does not have
an updated figure on the number of AIDS cases in Chile.

Dr. Sepulveda said Chilean doctors are extremely con-
cerned over the increasing number of babies born with
AIDS. She said seven babies have been born with AIDS,
with three of them having actually developed the disease.

HONDURAS

AIDS Deaths Total 250

90WE0318A San Pedro Sula TIEMPO in Spanish
17 Jul 90 p 30

{Text] Tegucigalpa—Over 250 of the 736 cases recorded
by the Ministry of Public Health to date have died on
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Last month one case of AIDS per day was reported, while
the records kept by the National Commission on AIDS
during May reported two cases per week as a minimum.

AIDS has an incubation period of from five to 10 days.
According to the representative of the Pan-American
Health Organization (PAHO) in Honduras, Luis
Antonio Loyola, this demands the participation of all
institutions and personnel to contribute through cam-
paigns to mitigating the effects that the disease will have
in the future, since an increase therein is predicted, and
the possibility of infection must be diminished.

Moreover, he remarked, in the United Nations Assembly
all governments declared AIDS a high priority disease,
and called upon the governments of countries to provide
support to the nations with the highest risk of infection
with the syndrome.

Loyola commented: “For this reason, PAHO has intensified
its cooperation throughout the entire American continent,
particularly with Central America and Panama.”

He also observed that they act as trustees of the interna-
tional aid, and as backup to meet the demand of the
national program headed by the Health Ministry. They
are working in conjunction with other agencies pro-
viding cooperation, such as the International Agency for
Development (IAD), with which the purchase of reagents
for diagnosing AIDS is coordinated.

LATIN AMERICA 23

Loyola noted that, at present, Honduras is one of the
countries in the Central American area that makes the
best diagonoses of AIDS; adding that this is probably one
of the reasons for which it appears to have more AIDS
cases than other Central American countries.

JAMAICA

Medical Officer Urges Social Tolerance for AIDS

FL1508144190 Bridgetown CANA in English
1358 GMT 15 Aug 90

[Text] [Words indistinct] AIDS cases in Jamaica climbed
to 171 at the end of July, according to the Ministry of
Health. One hundred and nineteen of the victims were
male and 52 female. Sixty one percent of the 171 victims
had already died.

Speaking at a public forum on the “Social Impact of AIDS,”
principal medical officer of health, Dr. Peter Figueroa, said
most of the AIDS cases now being reported were “home-
grown.” Local transmissions now accounted for 55 percent
of the cases and 32 percent were contracted overseas. He
noted that the main method of transmission in Jamaica was
through heterosexual intercourse which accounted for 46
percent of all reported cases. Stressing that there was no
definitive cure for AIDS, Dr. Figueroa called for greater
social tolerance for the disease.

“The issue of social stigma and social discrimination
must be addressed now,” he said.

Dr Figueroa noted that because of social intolerance of
the disease here, there had been instances where AIDS
patients had hidden their disease. He cited cases where
bank tellers had refused to change money from migrant
farm workers out of fear that the laborers might have
AIDS. The director of the National AIDS Program also
said many influential persons had refused to be associ-
ated with the program because of what others might say.
Dr. Figueroa noted that several prominent persons in the
society had refused to chair a fundraising committee of
the National AIDS Council. If the issue of social stigma
is not addressed, Dr. Figueroa said, it could make the job
of managing the disease more difficult, as infected per-
sons would be afraid to seek medical assistance.

PARAGUAY

11 More Confirmed AIDS Carriers

PY3109231790 Asuncion EL DIARIO in Spanish
31 Aug 90 p 15

[Summary] Dr. Marco Aurelio Aguayo, director of the
Anti-AIDS Program {Programa de Lucha Contra el
SIDA], has said that 11 more AIDS cases have been
reported. They are just AIDS carriers. Therefore, the
number of people infected with the fatal AIDS virus has
increased to 71. Only one AIDS patient remains alive; 16
other patients have already died.



JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990 3 AIDS

EAST EUROPE
POLAND

Hospitals, Population Still Plagued by Poor Knowledge of AIDS Facts

[Jan Strekowski; Warsaw TYGODNIK SOLIDARNOSC, 25 May 90] ..... 19
LATIN AMERICA
CHILE
1300 People Infected With AIDS Virus /Santiago LA TERCERA DE LA HORA, 25 Aug 90] ....... 23
HONDURAS
. 23

AIDS Deaths Total 250 /San Pedro Sula TIEMPO, 17 Jul 90]
JAMAICA

Medical Officer Urges Social Tolerance for AIDS [Bridgetown CANA, 15 Aug 90] ..
PARAGUAY

. 23

11 More Confirmed AIDS Carriers [Asuncion EL DIARIO, 31 Aug 90]
NEAR EAST & SOUTH ASIA
EGYPT

Transport Minister on Repatriated Nationals {Cairo Domestic Service, 10 Sep 90]
INDIA

Official Reports 629 Cases of AIDS in Manipur {New Delhi PATRIOT, 9 Jul 90] 24
Developments, Warning on spread of AIDS in India .... 24
Rapid Spread Predicted [Madras THE HINDU, 16 Jul 90] . 24
AIDS Among Calcutta Prostitutes /Calcutta THE STATESMAN, 17 Jul 90] . 24
Crisis Feared, Conference Planned [Calcutta THE STATESMAN, 13 Jul 90] 25
PAKISTAN
Paper Reports Spread of AIDS Cases [Islamabad THE MUSLIM, 18 Aug 90] ..... . 25
SOVIET UNION
Membrane Toxin Receptor for Treatment of AIDS
26

[N. Baranovskiy; Moscow RABOCHAYA TRIBUNA, 1 7 Jul 90)
Armenian Doctors on Possible AIDS Remedy

[Yerevan ARMENPRES International Service, 27 Aug 90] «..--
Namangan Visitor Brings AIDS to Kzyl-Orda [Moscow PRAVDA, ep 90]
Scientists Register 541 People With AIDS /Moscow Domestic Service, 10 Sep 90] ..

WEST EUROPE
CANADA

Scientists: Cancer Drugs Show Promise in AIDS Fight

[Nicholas Regush; Ottawa THE OTTAWA CITIZEN, 18 Jul 90]

AIDS Drug Testing Plan, Parliamentary Committee Report ...

Drug Testing Plan (Vancouver THE SUN, 30 May 90]
Parliamentary Committee Report

[Bill Taylor; Toronto THE TORONTO STAR, 7 Jun 90]



10 CHINA

AIDS Treatment By Traditional Chinese
Medicine Studied

90WE0227A Beijing RENMIN RIBAO [PEOPLE'S
DAILY] in Chinese 17 Apr 90 p 4

[Article: “AIDS Treatment by Chinese Medicine
Attracting Wide Attention from Chinese and Foreign
Medical Experts, *Miracle Weed“-Extract Exhibits
Unique Antiviral Activity”]

[Text] Shanghai (XINHUA)—Ma Zhongxue [5594 0112
1331], a 34-year old medical doctor specializing in
Chinese medicine recently proposed a timed circulation-
promoting combination therapy, utilizing traditional
Chinese medicine to treat acquired immune deficiency
syndrome (AIDS). This new approach has attracted
much attention from Chinese and foreign medical
experts.

In his paper presented at the annual meeting of the
Chinese International Human Resources Development
and Transcultural Research Association, which closed
on the ninth this month at Shanghai, Dr Ma Zhongxue of
the Beijing Acupuncture and Chiropractic Institute
reported that because of the complicated symptoms of
AIDS and its debilitating nature, there is not a single
treatment that can deal adequately with the many man-
ifestations of AIDS. He therefore devised a traditional
Chinese medicine therapy, packaging medications, acu-
puncture, steam treatment, massage, diet treatment,
psychological consultations and bath treatment, to
restore immune responsiveness in the patients. He
termed this approach “Chinese Traditional Medicine
Timed Circulation-Promoting Combination Therapy.”

Dr Ma has been studying applications of traditional
Chinese medicine in AIDS treatment for several years.
His research team is conducting experiments with HIV
samples obtained from the Pasteur Institute in France.
He explained in his paper, entitled “Case Analysis of
Traditional Chinese Medicine AIDS Treatment Trials
and Outlook for Its Application in Clinic Use,” that he
based his combination therapeutic system on the proven
success of traditional Chinese medicine in curing diges-
tive-tract disorders, cardiac illnesses and tumors.

His paper cited the satisfactory progress of AIDS
patients receiving Chinese medicine combination
therapy in trial cases conducted jointly by the National
Chinese Medicine Research Institute with the Santa
Barbara Oriental Medicine Institute in the United States
and with Lincoln Hospital in New York. Therefore, he
concluded that such treatments are gradually being rec-
ognized and accepted by Chinese and foreign medical
researchers. He also mentioned in his report that an
extract isolated from “Miracle Weed” [shen cao 4377
5430], a wild plant found in China, exhibited unique
anti-HIV activity when applied to a patient's vagina or
used as a mouthwash. The Chinese AIDS Screening and
Diagnotic Center in Beijing is conducting further study
on this extract.

IJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Mechanism of AIDS Treatment With Traditional
Chinese Medicine

90WE0227B Shanghai JIEFANG RIBAO in Chinese
16 Apr 90 p7

[Article by Bei Runpu [6296 3387 3184]: “Four Possible
Applications of traditional Chinese Medicine in AIDS
Treatment”)

[Text] At present, about 230,000 people have acquired
immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) worldwide and
another 10 million are infected with the AIDS virus,
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Because effec-
tive medicines that cure AIDS are yet to be found despite
intensive efforts, the possible therapeutic effect of tradi-
tional Chinese medicine against AIDS has attracted a
great deal of attention and interest in many countries.
According to an incomplete tally, research projects
studying the possible application of the good medicines
and wonderful drugs of Chinese medicine in AIDS and
AIDS-related complex (ARC) therapies are underway in
no less than 16 countries today. The promising results of
Chinese medicine in AIDS treatment as observed by
over 1,000 clinical investigators have been documented
in some 1,200 research papers.

To sum up, it is believed that traditional Chinese med-
icine can exert a tremendous impact in controlling the
spread of AIDS in the following four ways:

1. Stimulate the Activity of T Lymphocytes: T lympho-
cytes are the frontline soldiers of the human immune
system. The reason that AIDS is so ghastly a disease is
HIV’s ability to enter T-4 cells directly and to replicate
and proliferate in them. The T-4 cells are so severely
impaired that they die in large numbers, leading to the
collapse of the human immune system. Therefore, in the
international medical community, physicians frequently
use the T-4 cell count as a gauge to measure the serious-
ness of the symptoms, to monitor the status of the
immune system and as a reference to forecast the pos-
sible courses their illnesses might take. Clinical studies
have shown that a combination therapy of Chinese
medicine formula for strengthening the body resistance
to consolidate the constitution with agents like decoction
of 10 powerful tonics and pills of eight-flavored Chinese
foxglove root and prescription for promoting blood
circulation by removing blood stasis, using medicines
such as pink decoction of four ingredients and fibraurea
and tree peony bark decoction can significantly raise T-4
cell counts and their activity in AIDS patients. In addi-
tion, clinical findings show that licorice root and minor
decoction of bupleurum can restore human T-4 cells to
health as well.

2. Attack and Eliminate HIV: A study conducted at
Florida State University in the United States showed
that KS-7, a material isolated from five-needle pine
cones, has a 70-90 percent inhibitory effect on the
replication of HIV. In addition, a disulfoxide derivative
extracted from purpurea cirsium, an ingredient of tradi-
tional Chinese medicine, has been tested at the Davis



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
12 EAST ASIA 5 October 1990
AUSTRALIA The man whose identity is withheld under the law is the

AFP Reports on AIDS Cases, Death Toll

BK3108123590 Hong Kong AFP in English 1147 GMT
31 Aug 90

[Text] Canberra (AFP}—Almost 2,000 Australians have
contracted AIDS since 1983, according to statistics
released Friday.

The Australian HIV surveillance report said that as of
July 13 this year, 1935 men and 60 women had acquired
immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which robs the
body of its ability to fight disease.

The total number of deaths from AIDS had reached
1,207—1,169 men and 38 women, it said.

The report said the highest incidence of AIDS was
recorded in men aged 30 to 39 and in women aged 20 to
29.

Nearly 90 percent of the AIDS cases were attributed to
homosexual contact between men, the report said.

SOUTH KOREA

Seven More People Infected With AIDS Virus

SK3108140790 Seoul YONHAP in English 1359 GMT
31 Aug 90

[Text] Seven more people, including one foreigner, have
been confirmed to be infected with the AIDS (Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome) virus in August, bringing
to 31 the number of AIDS patients newly reported this
year, the Health and Social Affairs Ministry said Friday.

The number of AIDS patients found in Korea reached
104 since the first one reported in 1985.

Of them, 10 have died of the disease and 93 are under
the government's special control while the other one was
deported to his home country.

The number of AIDS patients has steadily grown since
1985. Four patients were found in 1986, nine in 1987, 22
in 1988 and 37 last year.

The Ministry predicts the number of AIDS patients
would exceed 50 at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the Ministry deported on Wednesday a
37-year-old foreign tourist, identified only as Mr. R, who
was proved to be infected with the disease in a blood test
at the National Health Institute.

American AIDS Victim Expelled

SK3108021290 Seoul THE KOREA TIMES in English
31 Aug 90 p 3

[Text] An American was expelled from the country
Wednesday after he tested positive for the AIDS virus,
the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, said yesterday.

second person to be deported from the nation so far this
year because of infection with the human immunodefi-
ciency virus (HIV), which causes the killer disease.

An official of the ministry’s Preventive Medicine Divi-
sion said the foreigner arrived in Korea on a sightseeing
tour last June 10.

Health authorities were investigating any persons who
had sexual contact with the alien, said the official,
adding that he had visited Korea four times in the past.

He reportedly went into hiding after he was confirmed as
“sero- positive” while undergoing treatment for his
tonsils at the Asan Medical Center in Seoul.

Currently, foreign entertainers and athletes wanting to
stay for 91 days or more to make money are required to
take an AIDS test.

But aliens are exempted from the mandatory HIV-
screening if they are accompanied by their spouse.

The number of Koreans infected with the HIV has
topped 100, according to official figures.

PHILIPPINES

Increase in AIDS Cases

90WE0276A Rangoon THE WORKING PEOPLE'S
DAILY in English 21 Jun 90 p 8

[Text] Manila—AIDS is sweeping the Philippines at an
alarming rate, according to the country’s Health Min-
istry.

On average of two new cases of AIDS were registered in
the Philippines each month last year, while the average
figure now is four new cases of AIDS a month.

Manuel Dairit, Director of the Programme for Combat-
ting AIDS, said that 172 cases of AIDS have been
registered in the Philippines. Thirty-one people have
been hospitalized and 141 are HIV-infected. Twenty
patients died. People in the risk groups constitute the
main danger for those around them, Dairit said.

The pace of the spread of AIDS in the Philippines is
largely due to social causes. Because of poverty and lack
of jobs, many young girls are driven into prostitution. A
large number of brothels are situated close to US military
bases in Olongapo and Angeles. The biggest number of
AIDS cases are registered in those cities.


JPRS-TEP-90-014

5 October 1990 2 AIDS
TANZANIA
Kemron’s Anti-AIDS Claims Questioned /Dar es Salaam FAMILY MIRROR, Jul 90) .... 7
UGANDA
AIDS, HIV Statistics Given [Kampala THE NEW VISION, 8 Aug 90] 8
1 Million Believed Infected With HIV
[David Musoke; Helsinki HELSINGIN SANOMAT, 18 Aug 90] 9
ZIMBABWE
Statistics Show AIDS Cases Increasing /Harare THE HERALD, 19 Jul 90] 9
CHINA
AIDS Treatment By Traditional Chinese Medicine Studied
[Beijing RENMIN RIBAO [PEOPLE'S DAILY], 17 Apr 90} .... 10
Mechanism of AIDS Treatment With Traditional Chinese Medicine
[Bei Runpu; Shanghai JIEFANG RIBAO, 16 Apr 90) .... 10
EAST ASIA
AUSTRALIA
AFP Reports on AIDS Cases, Death Toll /Hong Kong AFP, 31 Aug 90] 12
SOUTH KOREA
Seven More People Infected With AIDS Virus [Seoul YONHAP, 31 Aug 90] 12
American AIDS Victim Expelled /Seoul THE KOREA TIMES, 31 Aug 90] 12
PHILIPPINES
Increase in AIDS Cases {Rangoon THE WORKING PEOPLE'S DAILY, 21 Jun 90] 12
THAILAND
Concern Rises in Chonburi Over AIDS [Bangkok BAN MUANG, 30 Jul 90) .. 13
Drug Treatment Program Successful /Bangkok BANGKOK POST, 2 Aug 90] 13
AIDS, Drug User Update /Bangkok MATICHON, 2 Aug 90) ..... 13
Health Ministry Reports Number of AIDS Carriers Bangkok Domestic Service, 19 Aug 90] 13
700 Infected With AIDS in Southern Provinces {Bangkok BANGKOK POST, 6 Sep 90] ..... 14
Impact of Proposed AIDS Law, Statistics Noted
[Bangkok SIAM RAT SAPDA WICHAN, 29 Jul 90) ... 14
TB Incidence Connection With AIDS {Bangkok THAI RAT, 1 Aug 90] 15
Prostitutes Surveyed on AIDS Knowledge /Bangkok DAILY NEWS, 5 Aug 90] 16
Rayong AIDS Cases, IV Drug Use {Bangkok NAEO NA, 1 Aug 90] .. 16
Phayao AIDS Cases, Drug Addicts /Bangkok DAILY NEWS, 8 Aug 90] .. 16
Anti-AIDS Measures, Addicts by Region [Bangkok SIAM RAT, 2 Aug 90] 17
Official Optimistic About AIDS Trends /Bangkok DAILY NEWS, 2 Aug 90] 17
VIETNAM
AIDS Prevention, Control Program [Hanoi VNA, 27 Aug 90] ... 18



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Syphilis and Hepatitis B, which are also sexually trans-
mitted diseases. Consequently, the AIDS situation has
not changed. There is nothing to suggest that the pros-
pects are less serious today.

“There is always a new crop of young people who have
not heard about AIDS, and new men who have not been
gay before, who create a need for a longterm, targeted
information strategy.

“The problem is that an epidemic that develops this
slowly is poorly adapted to political initiatives, where the
time horizon is an election period of four years. If one
goes out and vaccinates 12,000 people all at one time in
order to prevent a meningitis epidemic, it pays off much
better. AIDS is a problem that is difficult to cope with
and has no political clout.

“I think that some political sources are giving off signals
that are designed to demobilize the public so that the
politicians can cut back without the public protesting.

“When the information suddenly ceases, people are
bound to get the impression that the problem is over.”

FINLAND

HIV Increase May Revitalize Information
Campaign

Teenagers Seen Unaware

90WE0295A Helsinki HELSINGIN SANOMAT
in Finnish 2 Jul 90 p 9

{Article: “Lahti AIDS Support Center To Open in Tem-
porary Quarters in Fall”]

[Text] Lahti—The AIDS support center planned for
Lahti will be getting temporary quarters from the city.
The center will be able to start testing, provide telephone
service and support personnel operations in the fall if the
municipal government, which is to meet in early July,
approves the motion to provide space for it. However,
the subsidy it was hoped would be made available to the
support center has not been promised.

The AIDS support center applied for operating space
and financial assistance this spring because it feels there
is a need for educating the public and for anonymous
testing in Lahti. People from the Lahti area who want to
get in touch with the center and be tested are always
coming to the Helsinki and Tampere support centers.

A temporary room in a city-owned building in which
there is space for a youth and temperance office is being
planned for the support center. It has been proposed to
the municipal government that the support center be
provided with a larger suite of rooms in the space
occupied by the library on Hollolankatu, which is to be
vacated in a year.

WEST EUROPE 33

Behind the Lahti support center are some 10 persons
who have worked as testers and telephone advisers at the
Helsinki center. Doctors and social workers are among
the volunteer workers.

“High school youths are incredibly ignorant of the ways
the HIV virus is contracted and of the disease in gen-
eral,” Lahti specially trained nurse Kirsti Ihatsu said.
According to Ihatsu, the situation in Lahti is not nearly
as favorable as the statistics tell us it is.

Infections Double in Year

90WE0295B Helsinki HELSINGIN SANOMAT
in Finnish 16 Jul 90 p 2

{Editorial: “AIDS Still a Serious Threat”)

[Text] We have managed to keep AIDS from spreading
too widely in Finland. Public information campaigns
were stepped up, and comprehensive testing brought
effective care to those who had contracted HIV. The
record 67 new cases of infection in 1986 did not mul-
tiply; instead, the tragic figures began to drop. In 1988 52
new cases of HIV infection were verified and two less the
following year.

The statistics began to get gloomier toward the end of
last year. During the first half of this year, the virus was
found in 35 new carriers. This is twice the number of
new cases during the same period last year. The figures
are in themselves small, but the trend is disturbing. If the
disease spreads at the'same rate during the second half of
the year, the statistics will turn into the gloomiest in the
existence of AIDS. We cannot afford to ignore these
warning figures; rather, the reasons for this unfortunate
change must be determined.

Has the fear of AIDS turned to apathy, or do the
members of new age groups who have begun to be
sexually active think that the danger has been overcome?
At least the Medical Board is still sending all 16-
year-olds its educational package, including a condom. It
is perhaps thanks to it that those under age 20 have
avoided infection better than others.

If the number of cases of infection continues to increase,
officials will have to consider a new national public
information campaign. The treatment of AIDS is so
costly that it pays to spend more money on preventing
the disease than is probably available for it in the skimpy
Medical Board budget for preventing the disease. It pays
for those who risk contracting HIV to know that is is not
pointless to go in for testing. Treatment effectively
delays the onset of the disease. So far, 316 cases of HIV
infection have been verified; of that number, 61 are
suffering from a loss of immunity and 35 died.



IJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

Last December several homeless HIV carriers settled
down, with the consent of the Warsaw people’s council,
in a vacant house in Kaweczyn that was awaiting reno-
vation. Shortly afterward they had to vacate the house,
as it was constantly besieged by the local inhabitants.

Last February these homeless people ended up in
another Warsaw suburb, Konstancin, in a building trans-
ferred to the Ministry of Health by the Ministry of
Internal Affairs. There, too, the local inhabitants had
protested, although there was no violence other than one
attempt at arson. As soon as things quieted down at
Konstancin, the inhabitants of Gloskow began to pro-
test, demanding the shutdown of a local drug abuse
treatment center which was allegedly sheltering HIV
carriers. The protest grew to a huge scale; a nearby
international highway was blockaded, and telephone
communications and food deliveries for the center were
cut off. The authorities, like almost everywhere else so
far, gave in, although this time the center was not shut
down and instead it was merely promised that HIV
carriers would not be placed there.

How Do the Authorities Respond?

The position of the authorities, whether the old ones or
the new ones deriving from Solidarity, in all such cases of
conflict is perplexing, as are the position and measures
taken by representatives of the old Administration (peo-
ple’s councils, the militia, the Ministry of Internal
Affairs).

At least until recently, protesters were treated with a
surprising gentleness. Militia were sent against demon-
strators protesting in front of Congress Hall, where the
very last congress of the PZPR had been held, yet neither
the persons responsible for beating up an HIV carrier in
Kaweczyn nor those responsible for blockading the
center and highways in Gloskow were made accountable,
although there they had violated several provisions of
the Criminal Code.

Have the Solidarity banners under which the protesters
camped out lost their panache, or was there another
reason for the inaction and conciliatory stance of the
procurature, the militia, the government, the Ministry of
Health?

The motives of, e.g., the militia and the government
cannot be equated. The former, which the public associ-
ates with the old [Communist] regime and branded by
years of impunity, it is nowadays engaging in a kind of
“strike Italian style,” consisting in pretending work
(“You wanted Solidarity. OK, so now you have it and let
it preserve public order itselft”). It has moreover close
ties to local authorities, which might benefit from the
expulsion of the undesirable guests; for example, in
Gloskow there are the palace, the hothouses, the more
than 30 hectares of well-tended soil, and the fish ponds.

EAST EUROPE 21

The situation of the government is more complex. As it
happens, we are on the eve of elections to local self-
governments which should fundamentally alter the polit-
ical landscape of Poland. The protesters most often
resort to slogans of self-government, democracy, and
taking power into their hands. The government, given its
already difficult situation in view of the increasingly
burdensome economic reform and gradually losing its
until recently broad popular support, has to reckon with
these voices. But we shall not escape the disease by
hiding our heads in the sand. While promising support
and help for the victims, no resoluteness has been shown
in defending them.

Many Poles moreover feel that the entire existing law
system is bad and should be scrapped, and that the law is
simply what agrees with the will of the majority. Any
criticism of this view is treated as a voice from the past,
from the old regime, or as a voice of the new nomenkla-
tura,which is the old nomenklatura in new clothes.

At a plenary session of the Sejm on 24 March the
Citizens’ Rights Spokesperson Professor Ewa Letkowska
pointed out, in her report on the activities of her office,
that Poland is a country of “constitutional agnosticism.”
Neither the Constitution nor the international agree-
ments ratified by our country (especially the treaties on
the rights of man) are sufficiently rooted in the minds of
the legislative and law enforcement bodies to make them
a major factor influencing the actions of the machinery
of state.

And this applies not only to the machinery of state.

Prof. Letowska declared, “A physician would certainly
be surprised if, after he recommends that an illness of
preschool children be identified, we tell him that he is
violating the constitutionally safeguarded principle of
respect for privacy.”

The Citizens’ Rights Spokesperson also pointed out that
the destruction of civic awareness also affects the society,
which, having until recently been treated paternalisti-
cally, is confused about its rights and about the dividing
line between legally warranted claims and claims dic-
tated only by one’s own “menaced selfish interests.”

It may be that the irresolution displayed by the author-
ities in face of the conflicts concerning HIV patients and
carriers has been linked to the legal uncertainty inherent
in the status of the carriers, and also to the scope of the
laws within the competences of the local communities.
But that “destruction of civic awareness” has certainly
manifested itself in these conflicts.

These conflicts also drew our attention to the humani-
tarian aspects of the matter. Sick people should not, no
matter what their illness, be discriminated against,
excluded from the society, and expelled from school as
happened in Wroclaw. On this issue are in agreement
both the WHO and the Helsinki Committee in Poland
which is collecting data on violations of the rights of man
with respect to HIV patients and carriers.



Epidemiology
AIDS

JPRS-TEP-90-014 CONTENTS 5 October 1990

[This EPIDEMIOLOGY report contains only material on AIDS. Other epidemiology topics are covered in a later
issue.]}

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
INTER-AFRICAN AFFAIRS
Interstate Workshop To Combat AIDS Organized
[Neldibaye M. Carpenter; Ndjamena AL-WATAN, 14-20 Jul 90) «.

Researcher Says Kenyan AIDS Drug Effective
[Peter Richards and Sandra Philias; Bridgetown CANA, 11 Sep 90] ...

CAMEROON
70 AIDS Cases in Northwest Province
[Tambi Samuel; Yaounde CAMEROON TRIBUNE, 4 Jul 90] ....
AIDS Rate - 2.72 Percent of People in South
[Johnnie MacVIBAN; Yaounde CAMEROON TRIBUNE, 25 May 90] ...
WHO Statistics Predict Increase in AIDS Cases [Yaounde Domestic Service, 31 Aug 90] .
DJIBOUTI
Eight AIDS Deaths /London BBC World Service, 23 Aug 90] ...

GABON

Seminar Trains Technicians To Screen Blood
[Annick-Brigitte Bouma; Libreville L’UNION, 13 Jun 90] ......

GHANA

Increase in AIDS Cases {Dakar PANA, 25 Sep 90] ....
MOZAMBIQUE

Appeal to Donors in Fight Against AIDS_ [Maputo NOTICIAS, 4 Jul 90]
127 AIDS Cases Reported 1986-July 1990 {Maputo Domestic Service, 11 Sep 90]

NAMIBIA

232 AIDS Cases as of March 1990 /Mbatjiua Ngvirue; Windhoek THE NAMIBIAN, 11 May 90] .
44 New AIDS Cases in May 1990 [Windhoek TIMES OF NAMIBIA, 4 Jul 90] .....

SOUTH AFRICA

we

wn

Minister Rejects Conservative Allegations on AIDS /Johannesburg SAPA, 26 Jul 90]
Official Details Cape AIDS Statistics, Fatalities /Johannesburg SAPA, 11 Sep 90] .

Researcher Discusses Pietermaritzburg AIDS Figures [Johannesburg SAPA, 15 Aug 90]
10 Percent of AIDS Fatalities Were Airways Employees (Johannesburg SAPA, 4 Sep 90]
No National Research Program on AIDS; Researchers Lacking [Johannesburg SAPA, 6 Sep 90]
Highest AIDS Figures: Natal Urban Males /Johannesburg SOWETAN, 19 Jun 90]
Infant AIDS Fatalities in Soweto (Johannesburg THE CITIZEN, 18 Jul 90] .......

III AAAR



JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

CANADA

Scientists: Cancer Drugs Show Promise in AIDS
Fight

90WE0300 Ottawa THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

in English 18 Jul 90 p A3

[Article by Nicholas Regush, The Montreal Gazette]

[Text] Montreal—Montreal scientists say they’ve suc-
cessfully used anti-cancer drugs to eliminate severe
AIDS-like symptoms in mice. The finding could lead to
a radically new approach to AIDS treatment.

If AIDS develops in humans as it does in mice, anti-
cancer drugs could prove effective in treating the devas-
tating condition, Dr Paul Jolicoeur told an international
congress on infectious diseases here Tuesday.

The new findings will soon be published in a scientific
journal, Jolicoeur said.

“Our next research step is to see to what extent our
animal data apply to humans,” he said in an interview.
“If there is a similar mechanism that gives rise to disease
in humans, then we'll have a very good model for
AIDS.”

On the basis of other studies with mice, Jolicoeur has
theorized that a cancer-like process in the body might
trigger acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

It is commonly thought that the human immunodefi-
ciency virus (HIV) destroys the body’s immune system
by killing its key cells, leaving the body vulnerable to a
host of potentially lethal infections and cancers.

AIDS drug treatment is mostly aimed at preventing HIV
from reproducing itself after initial infection.

But research on mice at the institute suggests the devel-
opment of AIDS might be far more complex.

For instance, studies show that only a defective version
of a mouse leukemia virus holds the potential to cause a
severe immune deficiency in mice. Symptoms include
swollen lymph glands and enlarged spleens.

And the virus does not have to reproduce itself to cause
widespread infection in the body.

“That virus acts like a cancer virus,” Jolicoeur said. The
virus, rather than killing cells, causes them to divide in a
cancer-like fashion. The cells thus proliferate.

The same process might be true of a defective version of
HIV, he said. But it is not understood how AIDS could
result from a cancer-like process in the body, possibly
triggered by a virus.

“We think the proliferating cells could produce a (sub-
stance) that is detrimental to the immune system,”
Jolicoeur told scientists.

WEST EUROPE 29

Acertain number of cells might need to build up to start
creating this substance. This may explain why some
cases of AIDS take many years to develop, he said.

AIDS Drug Testing Plan, Parliamentary
Committee Report

Drug Testing Plan

542000324 Vancouver THE SUN in English
30 May 90 p Al2

[Text] Ottawa—The federal government will spend $10
million over the next three years to establish a clinical
network to test new anti-AIDS drugs and vaccines,
Health Minister Perrin Beatty said Tuesday.

The network, being developed by the University of B.C.,
is expected to make it easier for AIDS victims and their
doctors to get drugs for treating AIDS and the HIV
infection that leads to the disease.

Information about tests of new drugs at regional clinics
across Canada will be collected at a national centre at St.
Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.

“This is a major step in our continuing efforts to ensure
that Canada is in the forefront of HIV therapeutic
research,” Beatty said in a speech to the annual meeting
of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association.

Beatty first announced the network last October when
his department gave the University of B.C. $30,000 to
develop the program.

At the time he said the network would cost between $2.5
million and $3 million a year to operate.

Existing AIDS drug trials will be incorporated into the
new clinical network.

Parliamentary Committee Report

54200032B Toronto THE TORONTO STAR in English
7 Jun 90 p All

[Article by Bill Taylor: “Report Blasts Lack of AIDS
Strategy”)

[Text] Canada’s lack of a national strategy to fight AIDS
is a “major embarrassment” to the country, says a
specialist in the killer syndrome.

A joint parliamentary committee report said yesterday
there is an urgent need for a nationally coordinated
strategy to fight a predicted “bulge” in acquired immune
deficiency syndrome.

The committee, headed by Progressive Conservative MP
David MacDonald (Rosedale), called on Ottawa to qua-
druple its present “inadequate” expenditure.

“We're nine years into the AIDS crisis,” Dr. Iain Mackie
told THE STAR from his London, Ont., office. “When



24 NEAR EAST & SOUTH ASIA

EGYPT

Transport Minister on Repatriated Nationals

NC1009193590 Cairo Domestic Service in Arabic
1500 GMT 10 Sep 90

[Text] Engineer Sulayman Mutawalli, minister of trans-
port, communications, and maritime transport, stated
that the Health Ministry has provided the Egyptian
medical team in Jordan with a new group of doctors, in
addition to medical equipment.

He added that 3,100 Egyptian nationals arrived at
Nuwaybi’ port from al-’Aqabah on board Egyptian fer-
ries yesterday. Another group of 810 Egyptians arrived
from al-’Aqabah yesterday on board the Saudi ship
al-Fahd. A third group of 2,080 Egyptians arrived on
Saudi, Libyan, Belgian, and Gulf flights.

INDIA

Official Reports 629 Cases of AIDS in Manipur

90WD0569 New Delhi PATRIOT in English
8 Jul 90 p5

[Text] At least 629 persons including 19 women have
been affected by AIDS in Manipur, according to the
latest report available here.

Stating this, Dr Y Ibotomba Singh, head of the AIDS
surveillance centre of the regional medical college hos-
pital here, said that cases of 514 others were sent outside
Manipur for confirmation of HIV virus by ELISA
(enzyme) linked immuno sorbent assay) and western blot
tests.

He said most of the AIDS patients were intravenous drug
users in the age group of 20 to 30.

Imphal district was the worst affected area in the State
with 279 AIDS patients.

The AIDS centre in Manipur had received blood samples
of 15 persons from Nagaland for testing HIV.

Developments, Warning on spread of AIDS in
India

Rapid Spread Predicted

90WD0665 Madras THE HINDU in English
16 Jul 90 p 4

[Text] New Delhi—Some 60,000 AIDS patients in India
will require hospitalisation over the next five years and
Bombay and Madras will be the worst hit cities, the
World Health Organisation (WHO) has informed the
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

A communication sent by WHO’s Geneva headquarters
to the ICMR here said even if no new AIDS infection
had occurred in India after 1989, the number of AIDS
cases needing hospital care would cross 60,000 by 1995.

JPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

“We’re now approaching a disaster phase,” Dr A.S.
Paintal, ICMR Director General, told PTI. “Hospitals
and the public:should gear up to meet this disaster,” he
said. WHO experts have predicted that by 1995, every
third pregnant woman in Bombay is likely to be found
infected with the AIDS virus when examined in the
ante-natal clinic, Dr Paintal said.

The prediction implies that girls and women in Bombay
between the ages of 15 and 35 are at enormous risk of
contracting the infection, he said. The male population is
also at a similar risk, Dr Paintal said.

AIDS Among Calcutta Prostitutes

90WDO0665 Calcutta THE STATESMAN in English
17 Jul 90 p 1

{Text] Two more AIDS cases have been detected in
Calcutta recently. Both patients are women and are
alleged to be prostitutes. It is learnt from informed
sources that the cases were detected at the School of
Tropical Medicine from samples received from various
medical colleges in the city. It is not yet known in which
part of the city these women live. The sources said that it
would be extremely difficult to trace these women as,
most likely, they had given fictitious names and
addresses to the medical college where they had sub-
mitted blood samples for examination.

The School of Tropical Medicine, which carries out the
Eliza tests and then the Western Blot examinations to
confirm AIDS positive cases, has already submitted its
results to the State Government. The sources said even if
the Government traced the victims, it would hardly be
able to take any action and isolate the women. There are
no laws on the strength of which the Government can
segregate the women.

The sources pointed out that because of legal handicaps
the Government had been unable to take any action
against Pearibai, the first AIDS positive case in Calcutta.
Pearibai reportedly left the city three years ago and
settled in Madhya Pradesh. It was, however, learnt from
the sources that Pearibai had recently returned to Cal-
cutta and taken up residence in one of the more promi-
nent red light zones of the metropolis. She has assumed
a different name and was once again entertaining clients,
according to information reaching the Tropical School.

The Tropical School authorities are worried as some of
the AIDS patients of Bombay have reportedly migrated
to Calcutta recently. It will be recalled that more than
1,000 AIDS positive cases were found in Bombay fol-
lowing medical examination of their blood samples.
Fearing repressive measures, these victims, all of them
prostitutes, left Bombay to settle in Madras and Madu-
rai. Doctors in the Tropical School have been informed
by experts in Bombay that a significant percentage of
them also went over to Delhi while a few decided to
settle in Calcutta.



8 SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

rather than on carefully conducted trials. Of the 103
Kenyans treated with the drug, information on its effec-
tiveness was presented for only 25. Some patients treated
with Kemron have died. Claims that within weeks of
starting treatment there was sero-conversion in a
number of patients—that is, formerly sero-positive cases
had become sero-negative— are completely implausible
in epidemiological terms. If you have a bug in your blood
it does not disappear overnight, no matter how well you
respond to treatment. Take a blood slide of a patient who
is recovering from a bout of malaria: you will still find
traces of the parasite in the blood long after all malaria
symptoms have disappeared. The patient is cured, but
the bug is still in the bloodstream. Ditto with AIDS
patients.

The Kenyan researchers have been successful in finding
that the drug showed signs of effectiveness a doses far
lower than those initially used in clinical trials. This does
not constitute proof that they either discovered the drug
or that it is a cure for AIDS. Whatever the case, there is
a large area of murkiness and apparent manipulation in
the whole Kemron affair which lead the impartial
observer to be very suspicious of the outrageous and
irresponsible claims made for the drug and the haste
with which it was brought to public attention. Kenya’s
former Director of Medical Services, Mr Eric Mugola, is
reported to have “criticized the manner in which the
discovery was made. He felt the announcement was
premature and that it would have been made at an
appropriate scientific forum”. (DAILY NEWS 8/2/90).

How come the American scientists involved have not
claimed credit for discovering the drug?, Mr Kimani
asks. A good question. It may be that nobody else has
claimed responsibility for the discovery because ade-
quate trials have not yet been undertaken on which to
base a reasonable claim for its effectiveness. It may also
be the case that all trials to date have proved inconclu-
sive, even if some patients do recover their appetite and
show other signs of improvement. (This can happen to
untreated AIDS patients anyway). Alternatively, it might
be that nobody wants to claim that a drug developed for
treating cats can be equally effective on human beings!

As regards the WHO’s acknowledging Kemron as a
“major breakthrough” in the fight against AIDS, we
would like Mr Kimani to quote his sources. Of course,
WHO does not dismiss researchers’ claims to have
discovered this or that drug without good cause. WHO
may even support trials and the further development of
the drug, if it promises great things. There is no reason
why “Kemron” (or whatever it will be named when
patented by the real discoverers of the drug) should not
be further tested and used in treating AIDS patients. Our
claims in the May article that the Kenyans in no way
“discovered” the drug, and that it does not cure AIDS (in
the sense of removing the virus from the blood) still
stand.

There will be a big patriotic fanfare in Kenya when
President Daniel arap Moi launches the wonder drug in

SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

the next month or two. In the enthusiasm of the moment
the real questions of (1) who discovered it, (2) what the
Kenyan researchers’ role in the matter was, and (3) who
will handle the further commercial development of the
drug (despite its “discovery” in Kenya it has never been
produced there) will be diplomatically glossed over.

Mr Kimani’s predictable slurr—that we are denigrating
Drs Koech and Obel and belittling an African achieve-
ment, and therefore displaying “colonial attitudes”—is
laughable. If the charlatans involved were Americans or
Japanese we would obtain the same satisfaction in
exposing their moral turpitude. The affair has nothing to
do with the race of the actors: if Drs Koech and Obel
prove to be the Indomitable Lions of AIDS research we
will happily shut up and wait for the label suite to arrive!
Until they prove their case to the satisfaction of all, we
remain highly skeptical of their exaggerated and unpro-
fessionally presented claims.

We are fortunate in our relatively free Tanzanian press
to be able to publish the above information. The Kenyan
public will only hear about the Kemron hoax second
hand, or from smuggled copies of the FAMILY
MIRROR, the paper [words illegible] revealing charla-
tans and liars, irrespective of nationality, race, sex or
creed. The heavy involvement of the Kenyan authorities
in the Kemron issue does not augur well from the point
of view of revealing the truth of the matter, but we will
keep on trying. Kenyan High Commission, please note.

UGANDA

AIDS, HIV Statistics Given

90WE0316A Kampala THE NEW VISION in English
8 Aug 90 p4

[Excerpt] Last week, the Director of the AIDS Control
Programme, Dr Samuel Okware, repeated a number of
alarming statistics about the spread of the HIV virus and
AIDS in Uganda when speaking to a workshop at
Uganda Breweries (THE NEW VISION, August 2, P1).

The statistics are alarming. Up to one million Ugandans
are infected with the HIV virus. There are approximately
50,000 new cases each year. Between 15 and 14 percent
of women attending ante-natal clinics in Kampala are
HIV-positive. The rate of infection among women in
Rakai is even higher at almost 35 percent. Women are
slightly more hard-hit than men with 47 women dying of
AIDS for every 53 men. Roughly 30 percent of children
born to positive mothers are HIV-positive. Among pros-
titutes, positivity can be as high as 74 percent.

Although Dr Okware did not say so, every part of the
country is affected. The positivity rates in central and
western Uganda are higher than elsewhere but HIV has
already spread to the north, north-east and north-west of
the country, especially in the towns. [Passage omitted]



SJPRS-TEP-90-014
5 October 1990

campus of the University of California as a possible
antiviral agent and the results looked promising. Fur-
thermore, medical researches and clinical trials carried
out abroad have discovered that ginger root, garlic
extract, arctium fruit, green chiretta, ragwort, ricin and
ternate buttercup root used in Chinese medications are
effective, to various degrees, in killing HIV. Active
components from these plants are currently under fur-
ther evaluation.

3. Alleviate AIDS Symptoms and Extend Patients’ Lives:
Many of the AIDS patients who have been diagnosed
and treated following Chinese medical therapies and
practices and who have received sustained Chinese med-
ications have reported improved clinical signs such as
increased appetite, reduced fever, weight gain, cessation
of diarrhea, shrinking of tumors or lymph nodes, and
better blood counts; some of the study subjects have
regained enough energy to return to work. According to
a report from the United States, a group of 26 homo-
sexual partners had contracted AIDS, one after another,
and 25 of them had died within a span of 3 years. One
person from this group, mainly because he has been
persistently taking Chinese medications for cure, has

CHINA i

become the sole survivor. He has outlived all his other
late partners for more than 5 years and is going strong; he
is back in his job.

4, Prevent the Onset of AIDS in HIV-infected Persons:
The effects of Chinese medicine in HIV-infected persons
who have not yet developed AIDS symptoms have been
investigated in a certain area in Africa. This study shows
that 1 percent of the study subjects who had been given
preventive treatment progressed to the full-blown dis-
ease after 1 year under observation, compared to 8
percent in a control group which had not received any
treatment. Physicians in the United States also have
observed unique inhibitory effects against the onset of
AIDS symptoms in pre-AIDS-condition persons
receiving extended administration of pills of Anemar-
rhena, Phellodendron and Rehmannia. A possible expla-
nation here is that the immune system is bolstered by the
therapeutic effect of tonifying the kidney and invigo-
rating the spleen, regulating the ‘qi’ and blood and
balancing the ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ of the drug; that it is able
to inhibit the replication of HIV and fight off the onset of
AIDS symptoms.