Click to download/open (Real Audio) A study by U.N. doctors says
African refugees are unjustly discriminated against in the
continent's fight against HIV and AIDS. The study debunks
assumptions that refugees are more likely to carry the deadly
virus than the general population. VOA's Michael Drudge has
attended a briefing with U.N. scientists in Nairobi, and he has
filed this report. The study conducted for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees examined the prevalence of HIV
infections among 800,000 refugees in seven African countries.
The agency's chief HIV-AIDS expert, Dr. Paul Spiegel, says that
in five of the seven countries, refugees actually were less
likely to have the infection than the general population. "For
numerous reasons, it was always considered that refugees will
have a higher HIV risk, but the mistake has been that people
extrapolated that risk to say, 'well, they' therefore' must have
a higher HIV infection.' And we are finding that this is not the
case," he said. Dr. Spiegel says the big