AIDS ‘Super Spreader’ Gives 4 Women Virus

A Southern California man doctors call the “super spreader” has infected at least four women with AIDS and is still having sexual encounters, a new report says.

“He has infected four out of five of his partners that we have seen, but we don’t know all of his partners,” Dr. Nancy Padian of UC Berkeley said at the Fourth International Conference on AIDS.

She said the “super spreader”--a hemophiliac infected through contaminated blood products--is in his 20s, lives in Southern California and is still healthy with no signs of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Padian outlined the case as part of a study of infection rates among women who engage in risky sex.

“He is now using condoms,” she said. “We asked him to tell” women about his AIDS infection, “but we can’t guarantee he is doing that.”

Padian said the “super spreader” was somehow more infectious than most carriers of the virus, perhaps because he was infected with a more contagious variety of the AIDS virus.

Dr. George Seague III of Boston’s Department of Health and Hospitals said: “It’s very feasible that this phenomenon might occur. Some strains of the virus might be more readily spread.”

Padian said one of the infected women had sex with the man 704 times, one 300 times and one 15 times.