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HIV/AIDS Cases Near 100,000 in Mexico

Posted on: Wednesday, 30 November 2005, 09:00 CST

HIV/AIDS cases near 100,000 in Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- Mexico had an accumulative total of 98,933 cases of HIV/AIDS on Nov. 15 and 5,000 new infections are expected to be recorded by the end of this year, Mexico's AIDS control body said Tuesday.

Jorge Saavedra Lopez, head of the National Center for the Control and Prevention of HIV/AIDS (Censida) told the press that at least 182,000 Mexicans infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS never went to a hospital or received any treatment.

Transmission through sex, especially between gays, and blood transfusions, remains the main cause of HIV infections, said Saavedra.

Of the more than 82,000 Mexican men that had contracted the HIV virus since 1981, some 57.6 percent had experience of gay sex and 37 percent never used a condom, said a report issued by Censida.

About 37 percent of them caught the virus through heterosexual contact and 3.7 percent through blood contact.

Among the 16,511 infected women, about 80.6 percent contracted the virus through unsafe sex and 13.1 percent from blood transfusions, said the report.

The death rate of AIDS fell by 25 percent in the past two years and the number of babies born with HIV also dropped, thanks to the antiretroviral therapy initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization in the country, said the report.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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