The epidemiology and transmission of AIDS: A hypothesis linking behavioural and biological determinants to time, person and place

Epidemiologically, the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS, is transmitted and distributed in the USA and Europe almost entirely in well-defined subsets of populations engaging in, or subjected to, the effects of behaviours which carry high risks of genital and systemic infections. The persons predominantly affected are those engaging in promiscuous homosexual and bisexual activity, regular use of addictive drugs, and their sexual and recreational partners. In such persons and in subsets of populations with corresponding life-styles, the risk of AIDS increases by orders of magnitude. Because of continuity of risk behaviour and of associated indicator infections, the incidence of AIDS over 3-5 year periods is predictable to within 10% of actual totals of registered cases in the USA and UK. Secondary transmission of AIDS beyond these groups is minimal or, in many locations, absent. There is no indication of appreciable spread by heterosexual transmission to the general population. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, is transmissible to some extent in general populations, and more so among promiscuous persons. It may cause viraemia, lymphadenopathy and latent infection (HIV disease) in anyone. In persons engaging in risk behaviours which themselves alter or suppress immune responses, it can interact with MHC, antibodies to other organisms and to semen, and other allogenic antigens to initiate a programmed death of CD4 lymphocytes and other defensive cells, as in graft-host rejections. This occurs also in haemophiliacs receiving transfusions of blood products, and is more pronounced in persons with reactive HLA haplotypes. The susceptibility of particular subsets of populations to AIDS is thereby largely explained. But these changes occur in the absence of HIV, and so do Kaposi's sarcoma, lymphadenopathies and opportunistic infections which are regarded as main indicators of AIDS. The hypothesis that HIV-1 can do all this by itself and thereby cause AIDS is falsifiable on biological as well as epidemiological grounds. An alternative hypothesis is proposed, linking the incidence of AIDS to the evolution of contemporary risk behaviour in particular communities and locations in the USA, UK and probably in most of Europe. It does not pretend to explain the reported incidence of AIDS in Africa and other developing regions where data are insufficient to provide validation of the pattern of disease and contributory variables. The immediate, practical implication of this alternative hypothesis is that existing programmes for the control of AIDS are wrongly orientated, extremely wasteful of effort and expenditure, and in some respects harmful. © 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.