Scientists of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, carrying out research in Kenya, suggested in the December 8 issue of the journal 'Science' that there may be a link between malaria, even though it is not sexually transmitted, and the spread of the AIDS virus across Africa.
They stated that Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease greatly boosts viral load -- the amount of human immunodeficiency virus in the blood of infected people. Consequently such patients are more likely to infect a sex partner with HIV.
Correspondingly, people already weakened by HIV were more prone to catching malaria.
Dr. Laith Abu-Raddad, HIV/AIDS research scientist and co-author of the study, said scientists were initially puzzled when they realized that the careless sexual behavior by people in the region was not by itself enough reason for the accelerated spread of HIV. They therefore surmised that other factors must be involved and carried out research in Kisumu, a Kenyan city beside Lake Victoria where both, HIV and malaria, were prevalent.
They studied disease prototypes in 200,000 adults there and explored a link between malaria and HIV. As a result of the investigation they concluded that the inter relations between the two diseases caused 8500 extra HIV deaths and 980000 malaria cases in the town itself.
HIV patients have weakened immune systems and are therefore more vulnerable to contracting malaria. This contraction of malaria causes the patient's pre existing HIV infection to deteriorate even further and make it more contagious.
As malaria can multiply by ten times the amount of HIV Virus in an HIV infected person's blood, passing it on to a sexual partner is easier and this has contributed considerably to the spread of HIV in Africa.
Although they were aware for some time that the inhibition of the immune system by HIV was capable of increasing the danger and of seriousness of malarial infection, the concept that malaria could encourage the passing on of HIV to another is comparatively recent.
This finding carried an important message for public health organizations as it stressed the need for the authorities of Sub-Saharan Africa to deal with the two diseases together.
It was also a demonstration of the possibility of other agents affecting the spread of HIV. Dr James Kublin of the Hutchinson center remarked that 'genital herpes and tuberculosis were also considered agents for encouraging the probability of infection'.
Abu-Raddad continued that HIV/ AIDS will continue to exacerbate other disease problems unless the public global health systems dealt with the challenge of HIV AIDS.
The Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) at the University of Washington through the Mathematical Modeling Program for HIV/STD Research funded the study while part of the support was provided by The HIV Vaccine Trials Network at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
