Nearly 130 cases notified

Press, 16 May 1989, Page 9

Nearly 130 cases notified

Nearly 130 cases of A.I.D.S. have been notified in New Zealand, a national conference on A.I.D.S. was told yesterday.

An epidemiologist, Dr Robert Carlson, said that by the end of April this year, 128 cases had been notified — 126 in men and two in women. In the first three months of this year, the Health Department has received more than half the number of notifications as in the whole of last year, he said.

“We have had 24 reports in the first quarter of this year. Understandably, this raises considerable concerns,” Dr Carlson said. A.I.D.S. was the most severe end of the H.I.V. manifestation and it took a long time after infection with the virus before the disease developed. “Current evidence suggests the medium incubation period of the disease is between seven and 10 years, so the current people with A.I.D.S. reflect those infected several years ago,” Dr Carlson said. The numbers with the disease in New Zealand were the same on a population basis as those of Australia and the United Kingdom, said Dr Carlson. Another epidemiologist, Professor David Skegg, of the Otago Medical School, said the A.I.D.S. epidemic in New Zealand would probably not peak until after the year 2000.

“Even if we were to stop transmission right now we would still expect more cases in the decade ahead than we have had so far. “If we do not maintain the current changes in sexual behaviour then the numbers will be even higher,” Professor Skegg said.