Using the town of Kisumu, Kenya on the shore of Lake Victoria as an example, Abu-Raddad estimates that 5 percent of all HIV infections are attributed to the heightened HIV viral load induced by malaria. "In Kisumu, we estimate that 10 percent of adult malaria episodes are attributed to HIV," he said.
That translates into 8,500 excess HIV infections and 980,000 excess malaria episodes since 1980 in a town with an adult population of about 200,000, the researchers said.
Kublin said that these findings suggest that other co-infections such as genital herpes or tuberculosis may have also contributed to the rapid expansion of HIV in Africa.
The study's findings have implications for public health, Kublin said. "We can reduce HIV/AIDS transmission by concomitantly treating HIV/AIDS co-infections with malaria as well as other diseases," he said.
"The global public-health system's failure to deal with the challenge of HIV/AIDS contributes directly to its failure to tackle other public-health challenges such as malaria and tuberculosis," Abu-Raddad said. "As long as HIV/AIDS continues to spread, it will aggravate the difficulties we face with these other diseases and may contribute to the emergence of more lethal or drug-resistant strains of these infections," Kublin added.
'"/>
Contact: Dean Forbes
dforbes@fhcrc.org
206-667-2896
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
7-Dec-2006