
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 7, 1995                   TAG: 9501090053
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DETROIT                                LENGTH: Medium

STUDY: AIDS VIRUS MOST CONTAGIOUS IN EARLY STAGES

The AIDS virus may be 100 to 1,000 times more contagious during the first two months of infection, when routine AIDS tests are unable to tell whether people are infected, researchers said Friday.

Among homosexual males, the chances of infecting a partner during unprotected sex in the initial 60 days may be as high as three in 10, the University of Michigan research team said.

``It means that if you're trying to evaluate a partner for how risky it is to have sex, it is not just how many partners, but also how recently,'' said James S. Koopman, a University of Michigan epidemiologist.

Routine AIDS tests look for presence of antibodies the body has made to defend against the AIDS virus. The antibodies don't appear immediately.

HIV-infected people can be healthy and live for years before the virus begins reproducing and attacks the body's immune system.

``The danger is that a person who tests negative and is very active sexually may be more dangerous than someone who has tested positive,'' said Carl S. Simon, another University of Michigan researcher.

Other studies have suggested that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is most contagious in early stages.

The Michigan study, a mathematical analysis based on existing research, attempted to determine how much more contagious.

``Within the context of actual studies, there are limited data to support this contention, and this model puts some mathematical odds on infectiousness early on,'' said Dr. Scott Holmberg of the Division of HIV-AIDS at the Atlanta-based federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study, published in the November issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is based on a computer simulation that used long-term studies of AIDS antibodies in blood from more than 8,000 homosexual males from San Francisco and Chicago and studies of female-to-male transmission in 1,115 military conscripts in Thailand.

The study suggests HIV infection might progress in much the same way as do the viruses that cause influenza or chicken pox: They are most infectious just before antibodies to the virus appear.

Dr. Lew Barker, acting associate director of vaccine and prevention research in the division of AIDS at the National Institutes of Health, wouldn't comment on the study except to say the conclusions seemed reasonable.

Another of the researchers, John A. Jacquez, acknowledged that more research is needed to confirm the findings.

by CNB