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Beginning in early 2015, UNICEF with UNAIDS, WHO, and other organizations initiated the All In to #EndAdolescentAIDS program. The program has some good points – e.g, promoting more HIV testing and better treatment for HIV-positive adolescents.
However, the program is off the mark on prevention. It says nothing about risks adolescents in Africa face to get HIV from blood-contaminated instruments during health care (blood tests, dental care, injections, etc) and cosmetic services (tattooing, manicures, hair styling).
Ignoring such risks while focusing only on sex stigmatizes those who are already infected (aha! you had careless sex!) and misleads those who are HIV-negative to ignore blood-borne risks.
Evidence HIV-positive adolescents did NOT get HIV from sex
The best available evidence – from national surveys – suggests less than half of HIV infections in African adolescents came from sex. For example, in national surveys in Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania, majorities of HIV-positive youth aged 15-19 years reported being virgins (Table 1). Across these three countries, 57% (36 of 63) HIV-positive youth in the survey samples reported being virgins.
Some HIV-positive teens may have gotten HIV from their mothers when they were babies; but without antiretroviral treatment (ART), which arrived late in Africa, survival to adolescence would be unusual. Thus most adolescent virgins with HIV likely got it from blood contacts. If virgins are getting HIV that way, some non-virgins are likely getting it the same way.
Using data from national surveys in Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, and assuming no lying about sexual behavior, Deuchert estimates only 30% of HIV-positive never-married adolescent women aged 15-19 years got infected through sex. What if some lied? Deuchart does the math: “The assumption that HIV is predominantly sexually transmitted is valid only if more than 55% of unmarried adolescent women who are sexually active have misreported sexual activity status.” (Tennekoon makes a similar analysis.)
But let’s cast the net wider: During 2003-15, 45 national surveys in Africa reported the %s of (self-reported) virgin and non-virgin youth aged 15-24 years with HIV (see Table 2 at the end of this blog post). Young men and women got HIV whether or not they virgins.
For example, in Congo (Brazzaville), Rwanda, Guinea (2012), Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Gambia, the %s of young women that were HIV-positive was greater among virgins than among all young women. Among young men, the % with HIV was the same or greater among virgins vs. all young men in Tanzania (2007-08), Congo (Brazzaville), Sierra Leone (2013), Guinea (2005), Mali, Sao Tome and Principe, Burundi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gambia.
Across all 45 surveys, the median ratio of the %s of self-reported virgin young men with HIV to all young men with HIV was 0.75 (last line, Table 2). Across all 45 surveys, the median ratio of the %s of self-reported virgin young women with HIV to all young women with HIV was 0.33 (last line, Table 2). And, as noted above, many infections in non-virgins likely came from blood-borne risks.
The only way to say most HIV infections in adolescents in Africa come from sex is to throw away the best evidence we have – to assume survey data are wrong because self-reported HIV-positive virgins are lying. That seems to be what experts at UNICEF, WHO, and UNAIDS have done – ignoring evidence to accuse HIV-positive adolescents of unwise sex, and accusing them also of lying if they say they are virgins.
Stigmatizing HIV-positive African youth for unwise sexual behavior is a form of abuse. Because young women are more likely than young men to be exposed to HIV during more frequent health care and cosmetic procedures, not warning about bloodborne risks contributes to unrecognized violence and abuse targeting African women.
1. Brewer DD, Potterat JJ, Muth SQ, Brody S. Converging evidence suggests nonsexual HIV transmission among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. J Adolescent Health 2007; 40: 290-293. Partial draft available at: https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/elsevier/converging-evidence-suggests-nonsexual-hiv-transmission-among-105k5VXKQE (accessed 19 December 2015).
2. Deuchert E. The Virgin HIV Puzzle: Can Misreporting Account for the High Proportion of HIV Cases in Self-reported Virgins? Journal of African Economics, October 2011, pp 60-89. Abstract available at: http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/1/60.abstract (accessed 19 December 2015).
3. Tennekoon VSBW. Topics in health economics. PhD dissertation. Washington State U, 2012. Available at: http://research.wsulibs.wsu.edu:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2376/4270/Tennekoon_wsu_0251E_10484.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed 18 December 2015). See also an earlier paper by