No AIDS until marriage

A recent survey on HIV/AIDS prevalence in Cambodia suggests that the country’s efforts to subdue the disease have been even more effective than previously documented.

Previous monitoring of the HIV epidemic in Cambodia relied on surveys in specific groups, and suggested that prevalence was as high as 24% in injecting drug users, 21% in brothel-based sex workers, 5% in men who have sex with men, 2.5% in policemen, and 2.2% in pregnant women. These surveys did suggest that prevalence had been declining since 1998, but given weaknesses in the methodology, there was an urgent need to validate the estimates of the prevalence in the general population with a different approach.

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HIV prevalence in the general population was lower than expected, at 0.6% for both men and women. However it was considerably higher in urban areas than in rural areas: 1.6% in urban men, but 0.4% in rural men, with similar figures for women. (Approximately 15% of the Cambodian population lives in urban areas.)

HIV infection was largely limited to people who were married or had previously been married. Even adjusting for age, the highest rates were in people who were divorced, separated or widowed (women in this group were 23 times more likely to be HIV-positive than single women). Moreover, because women tended to marry younger than men, infection was more common in women under the age of 29 than in men of the same age group.

The survey included 6,514 men and 8,188 women nationwide. There’s further statistical breakdowns at the link.