Malaria and AIDS in Africa

From Reuters

Scientists say malaria fuels AIDS spread in Africa
Thu Dec 7, 2006 3:29pm ET
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Malaria may be helping spread the AIDS virus across Africa, the continent hardest hit by the incurable disease, scientists said on Thursday.

The way the two diseases interact greatly expands the prevalence of both among people in sub-Saharan Africa, a team of scientists said in a study in the journal Science.

Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite, greatly boosts viral load — the amount of human immunodeficiency virus in the blood of infected people — making them more likely to infect a sex partner with HIV, they stated.

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