"Sugar daddies" blamed for high HIV/AIDS among teenage girls

Accra (Greater Accra) 18 Oct. '99

'Sugar daddies' have been blamed for the high incidence of HIV/AIDS among teenage girls in four African cities, a UNAIDS research has revealed.

The research, carried out in Cotonou and Yaounde in West Africa and Kisumu, Kenya and Ndola, Zambia, showed that spreading AIDS is also related to whether or not a man is circumcised.

The study did not find any evidence that female genital mutilation plays any role in the acquisition of the disease.

The survey, made available in a report released in Accra on Monday, and carried out between June 1997 and March 1998, showed evidence that high HIV levels in teenage girls are linked to contacts with older men in the four cities.

Dr Rosemary Musonda, of the Tropical Diseases Research Centre in Zambia, said they found female HIV prevalence significantly higher than male prevalence everywhere except in Cotonou, where it was 3.3 per cent in men and 3.4 per cent in women. The largest male to female divergence was found among the 15 to 19-year-olds in Kisumu and Ndola.

"Teenage girls in the high prevalence cities in Ndola and Kisumu have rates of 15 to 23 per cent - fully four to six times higher than boys in the same age bracket."

In Kisumu, more than three per cent of male teenagers were infected compared with 23 per cent of female teenagers. In Ndola, HIV prevalence in this group was four per cent in boys and 15 per cent in girls.

"Across these four cities, 40 per cent of the prostitutes were 24 years old or younger, and 56 per cent in Ndola. Almost a quarter of the prostitutes in Ndola, were under 20," the report adds.

The group of scientists and researchers studied the heterogeneity of HIV epidemics with support from UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation, and sought to explain the striking differences in the speed at which HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has been spreading in Africa.

For example, HIV prevalence among pregnant women in West Africa is still under10 per cent while it exceeds 30 per cent in many places in Central and Eastern Africa.

Dr Jane Gejge, of the Kenya Population Council, said in her country, "sugar daddies" prefer teenage girls because they are less expensive and it is believed that their risk factor is lower.

"In Kisumu and Ndola, sex with an older man correlated strongly with a higher risk of HIV. In addition, early sex initiation for girls and early marriage for both sexes, were associated with higher risk of infection."

Dr Michael Carael, Head of Prevention, UNAIDS, cautioned against misinterpretation of the findings, stressing that HIV rates, as high as three to eight per cent, should not lead countries to conclude that their AIDS programmes are on the wrong track.

"On the contrary, prevention measures now in use, including education for safer sex and sexually transmitted diseases and control programmes, need to be scaled up.

"When almost a quarter of teenage girls have HIV and when close to half of them carry the virus that causes herpes, the only possible explanation is that they are becoming infected during the first few exposures, may be their very first."

The study was co-ordinated by Dr Anne Buve, of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium. She said: "for the millions of African girls in or nearing their early teens, education is an emergency".

"Prevention just cannot wait. Girls have the right to know that they are at high risk of becoming infected quickly even if they have one partner, especially an older man".