New AIDS Cases Reported in U.S. 1 Every 14 Minutes : Carriers Grow More Infectious

New AIDS cases are being reported in the United States at the rate of one every 14 minutes and an estimated 365,000 cases will have been reported by 1992, the latest U.S. government figures show.

In addition, the 1 million or more Americans infected with the AIDS virus are becoming more infectious, and the risk to uninfected people is growing, researchers said today.

“Non-monogamous sexual contact is becoming more dangerous,” said James Goedert of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. He presented his findings at the Fourth International Conference on AIDS in Stockholm.

In a study of hemophiliacs, Goedert found that condoms don’t protect against AIDS unless they are always used during sexual relations. “Irregular condom use is no better than no condom at all,” he said.

American Gives Report

Dr. James Curran of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reported that new AIDS cases are reported in the United States at the rate of one every 14 minutes.

He estimated 365,000 cases will have been reported in the United States by 1992 but said the figure could range between 205,000 and 440,000.

Curran said it is difficult to tell if the AIDS epidemic is beginning to level off but said he didn’t consider that an important question.

“We had a thousand cases reported in the United States last week,” he said in an interview. “Does it matter whether it’s going up or not? It might level off like lung cancer or heart disease--and that’s not good.”

Curran said that the transmission of AIDS among heterosexuals will continue to grow. “More and more women are acquiring the disease through heterosexual contact,” he said.

Transmission Rate Studied

Goedert’s conclusions about the growing infectiousness of people carrying the AIDS virus came from a study of the rate at which infected hemophiliacs transmitted the AIDS virus to their wives or steady female partners.

In the first year of the hemophiliacs’ infection, only 1% of the partners became infected.

By the fourth year, the rate of transmission began to increase and by the fifth year, 10% to 20% of the women were becoming infected each year, Goedert said.

“There is a steeply increasing risk of becoming infected in long-term relationships,” he said, adding, “The more partners, the more the risk.”

The AIDS conference here is the largest meeting ever held on the subject of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, with more than 7,000 in attendance.

No Breakthroughs Expected

Participants in the four-day conference were scheduled to make about 3,600 presentations, but no breakthroughs were expected in ways of curing or preventing the deadly virus.

Also today:

--Jean-Baptiste Brunet of Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris said the number of AIDS cases reported in Europe has reached 12,221 and is doubling every 11 months.

The incidence of AIDS in drug abusers is exploding in Spain, France and Italy, he said. An estimated 300,000 to 800,000 people in 30 European ountries are now infected with the AIDS virus, Brunet said.

--Australian researchers described six cases in which mothers who became infected after birth passed the virus to their infants through breast milk.

--An early report from an expanding U.S. government study of American hospital patients said that three in every 1,000 patients tested at six U.S. hospitals are infected with the AIDS virus--but the spread of the AIDS virus appears to be slowing.