AIDS Impact on Economics, Politics Seen : 10 Million Already Infected With Virus, Health Official Says

As many as 10 million people worldwide are already infected with the AIDS virus, and AIDS deaths among younger adults could cause political and economic upheaval in severely affected countries, an international health official said today.

“This epidemic has just started,” cautioned Dr. Jonathan Mann of the World Health Organization.

As of Monday, 51,535 AIDS cases had been reported in 113 countries, and Mann estimated the number of people infected with the virus could be hundreds of times higher, possibly as high as 10 million.

Unlike every other major health problem, AIDS strikes sexually active adults in their prime working years.

“The selective involvement of young and middle-aged adults, including business and government people and members of other social, economic and political elites, leads to a potential for economic and political destabilization in areas of the developing world severely affected by HIV,” the AIDS virus, Mann said.

‘Destabilizing Influence’

“What political system could withstand for long the destabilizing influence of a 20% or 25% or higher HIV infection rate among young adults?”

Mann spoke at the Third International Conference on AIDS.

Once people catch the AIDS virus, they are believed to be infected for life. Just how many of them actually will get the acquired immune deficiency syndrome is unclear, although more than a third of the infected people in one San Francisco study have contracted the lethal disease.

Experts can also only roughly guess how many outwardly healthy people are infected and capable of passing on the virus during sex, childbirth or sharing hypodermic needles.

One in 30 Carries Virus

Dr. James Curran, head of the AIDS program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said the best estimate is that 1.5 million people are infected in the United States. This would mean that perhaps one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 50 carries the virus.

By 1991, he said, AIDS is likely to be the second leading cause of premature death, after accidents, among American men.

“Let us all remember that each number represents a person,” he said.

Dr. I. S. Okware said one study suggests that in Central Africa, where the epidemic is believed to have started, perhaps nearly 2% of the population is becoming infected annually.