Global AIDS Is A Myth

With the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS is confined to gay men, drug users, hookers and their clients says Dr. De Cock, head of the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department.

The concession comes just months after the United Nations admitted overstating the threat of AIDS, slashing estimates of the number of people with HIV worldwide from nearly 40million to 33million.

Speaking a quarter of a century after the term AIDS was coined, Dr De Cock said large-scale heterosexual spread was unlikely to occur anywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 11 million children have been orphaned by the disease.

He said: 'It is very unlikely there will be a heterosexual epidemic in other countries.

'Ten years ago, a lot of people were saying there would be a generalised epidemic in Asia - China was a big worry with its huge population.

'That doesn't look likely. But we have to be careful.

'As an epidemiologist, it is better to describe what we can measure. There could be small outbreaks in some areas.'

Therefore, it seems Dr. De Cock is saying it's time to be accurate rather than alarming about AIDS. Efforts to fight the disease should be targeted at high-risk groups, not populations in general.