Just How Accurate Are HIV Estimates?
In January, Kenya announced that its HIV rate had fell almost in half overnight. But this was not due to any new program adopted by Kenya. Rather the government released a more accurate estimate that only 6.7 percent of people in Kenya suffer from AIDS compared to the older estimate of 15 percent.
The 6.7 percent infection rate is based on the most extensive look at AIDS in Kenya yet, and even then the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey looked at a mere 8,561 households in a country of 32 million people.
On the heels of other studies in Mali, Zambia and elsewhere that found similar overestimates, one has to wonder about the quality of data on HIV prevalence throughout the developing world.
Meanwhile UNAIDS advisor Catherine Hankins took the bizarre view that there was, in fact, no overestimation of HIV rates,
We cannot say that we have overestimated HIV rates in Africa. All figures for HIV prevalence in Africa are estimates.
Yes, but I don’t remember UNAIDS ever warning publicity that HIV prevalence may be off by up to 100 percent. Such large discrepancies could potentially cause donor nations to question the reliability of UNAIDS assessments of the epidemic.
Source:
Study cuts Kenyan HIV estimates. The BBC, January 9, 2004.
The Just How Accurate Are HIV Estimates? by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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January 17th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
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January 18th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
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January 18th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
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May 22nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
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June 7th, 2009 at 8:28 am
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June 14th, 2009 at 3:56 am
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September 26th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
HIV / AIDS is one hell of a scary disease. we still do not have a cure nor a vaccine for it, so always practice safe sex.
December 27th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
It is quite scary that there is still no cure for HIV/AIDS and the only way we can fight it is by prevention. How long would it take our scientists to develop a cure or vaccine for this disease?
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