
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, December 13, 1993                   TAG: 9312130073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MARRAKESH, MOROCCO                                LENGTH: Short

AIDS CASES INCREASE BY 2 MILLION

About 2 million more people were infected with the AIDS virus in the past year, mostly in Africa where teen-agers and young adults are being infected at an alarming rate, the World Health Organization said Sunday.

Nearly 70 percent of the world's 15 million people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus are in Africa, said Michael Merson, director-general of WHO's Global Program on AIDS.

He spoke at the opening of the eighth annual International Conference on AIDS in Africa.

Most alarming is the spread of AIDS among African youths and young adults. Merson said a new WHO study of the African epidemic shows 60 percent of new infections are among people ages 15-24.

Ethiopia has close to half a million infected people, while in Nigeria as many as 22 percent of the men treated at sexually transmitted disease clinics are HIV-positive, he said.

"And to the south, where we think the epidemic may take its greatest toll, already one in three women seeking postnatal care in Francistown, Botswana, are infected," Merson said.

by CNB