ESTIMATED

CUMULATIVE

ADULT HIV INFECTIONS (WORLDWIDE)

MILLIONS 12

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

WHO GETS AIDS?

WE ARE ALL AT RISK

Believe that you could never get AIDS? Don't be so sure.

One of the ways people distance themselves from AIDS is by elieving that only those in "high risk groups" fall ill. If they aren't in uch a group, they may have little sympathy for those who contract ne disease. Since the 1980s, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, Haitians, nd intravenous drug users have accounted for most U.S. AIDS ases, so many people consider them "high risk groups." But it is ot being Haitian or hemophiliac or homosexual or a drug user that lives you AIDS. It is a virus. In Africa, for instance, AIDS is a exually transmitted disease that primarily affects heterosexuals see card 78), not Haitians, hemophiliacs, gays, or drug users.

To greatly decrease your chances of HIV infection, you should void risky sex or drug use (see cards 64, 65, 66, and 68), but emember, even complete celibacy is not an ironclad protection gainst the disease. Here's why:

Say that you are driving to the store tomorrow, your car is hit y another driver, and you wind up in the hospital needing a blood ansfusion. It is virtually certain that the donor blood you are given as been screened for HIV. The blood is absolutely safe, right? Not ecessarily. Despite the best screening techniques, about 2% of IDS cases still arise through transfusions. Current HIV tests can nly check for HIV antibodies, not the HIV virus itself, and up to six nonths may pass between the time a person is infected and enough Intibodies develop to show on a test. During that period HIV can be pread through blood donation.

The moral: ANYONE can get AIDS.

Next Card 61: A BRIEF HISTORY of AIDS