World Cup Raises HIV Education Hopes
July 2, 2010— -- Soccer fans around the world may be wringing their hands over the quarterfinals of the World Cup, but some doctors are agonizing over a more serious stake in the tournament -- they hope to slow HIV transmissions during World Cup celebrations.
Any major sports event carries a risk of upping sexually transmitted diseases among celebrating fans. Doctors say alcohol, parties and the anonymity of traveling abroad are the perfect storm for unsafe sex.
So when South Africa, which has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates on the planet, was named as the 2010 host for the World Cup, public health advocates saw a window of opportunity and a window for disaster.
"It was an ethical issue because we have such high HIV rates, many visitors may not know the risk they are at in having sex in South Africa," said Dr. Sue Goldstein, senior executive of South Africa Programs of Soul City: Institute for Health and Development Communication in Johannesburg.
"In South Africa, many people do not know their HIV status, so you can ask someone if they're HIV positive and they'll say 'no,' because they don't know," said Goldstein.
UNAIDS, the United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, estimates just over 18 percent of the adult South African population is HIV positive. Only three other countries have higher HIV infection rates.
Dr. Charles van der Horst, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Durham, said prevention efforts have worked before in Sub-Saharan Africa.
"In Malawi it reached 23 percent of the population affected," said van der Horst, who works in HIV/AIDS care in Malawi and South Africa. By 2007, the HIV rate in Malawi dropped to 11.9 percent according to the United Nations AIDS program.
But in South Africa, van der Horst said young people may be at a particularly high risk for contracting HIV during World Cup celebrations.
"HIV will spread whenever you have a large gathering of people, including tourists, making use of prostitutes, getting drunk, and drug use -- including large numbers of people having sexual activity," said van der Horst.
