AIDS Diagnosis Changes Victims’ Behavior, Study Says

The vast majority of people diagnosed with the AIDS virus begin using condoms or curtail their sexual activity after testing positive, the government said Thursday.

Ninety percent of those interviewed in the 1997-98 study said they changed their sexual behavior after learning they were infected.

Among them, 60% said they used condoms more often, about half had sex less frequently, and more than a third stopped having sex altogether.

The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention involved 180 people in Alabama, New Jersey and Tennessee.

The CDC said the results show the importance of setting up more HIV testing programs.

“We generally found that once people that are infected know their status, they do adopt safer behaviors. It has tremendous public health implications,” said Patricia Sweeney, a CDC epidemiologist.

As many as 900,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV, though an estimated one-third have not been diagnosed, the CDC said.