Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508280063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
More than one in every five semen samples from HIV-infected men contain live specimens of the virus that causes AIDS, demonstrating the high risk of unprotected sex, even with men showing no symptoms, researchers say.
Dr. Ann C. Collier of the University of Washington, Seattle, said a study of more than 100 semen samples taken from 16 HIV-positive men over a two-year period found live and infectious virus 22 percent of the time.
Collier said Friday that the appearance of the virus was intermittent, appearing in the semen from some men during one test, but absent when the same men were tested later.
``In one way, this is good news,'' said Collier. ``If the virus was found more frequently, then the transmission rate of the disease would be much higher.''
The bad news, she said, is that nobody can tell when the virus will be present in the semen of HIV-positive men.
``We could find no predictors of who would and who would not be shedding the virus [through their semen],'' said Collier, a physician who specializes in infectious diseases.
A report on the study is to be published in the September issue of the Journal of Urology, a medical journal of the American Urological Association. Researchers from New York University School of Medicine also participated in the study.
HIV was found less frequently than 22 percent in earlier semen studies. Collier said her group found more of the virus because great care was taken to start the laboratory work rapidly. Each specimen was placed into a cycle of tests immediately after it was collected. The tests included culturing and also an amplification capable of detecting even a small population of virus.
In blood tests, all of the patients tested positive for the AIDS virus every time they were examined, the study said.
Dr. Robert Gallo, a National Institutes of Health researcher, said the findings are new but ``not surprising.''
``With better and better laboratory technology, the discovered frequency of HIV in semen will go higher and higher,'' he said. ``If you get good enough technology, it may well be that you will find the virus in all semen from seropositive men.''
Gallo was co-author of a 1984 study in which the virus was isolated in semen. He said the detection techniques have been substantially improved since.
The researcher also said the new findings, once again, emphasize the wisdom of practicing safe sex.
Collier said even the taking of anti-viral drugs did not assure virus-free semen. The rate of virus detection was the same in patients on AIDS drugs as in patients not taking medications.
by CNB