More elderly men being infected
with HIV
Straits Times. Jan 18, 1998
By Lea Wee
A STUDY has found an increasing number of men, with an average age of 59, being infected with HIV, the virus that causes aids.
The men, the oldest of whom was 75 years old, were all sexually active, though not necessarily with their wives. Most of them got the disease from prostitutes overseas.
The study was done by Dr Lee Cheng Chuan, Dr Leo Yee Sin and Dr Wong Sin Yew of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Dr Ian Snodgrass from the hospital's Department of Clinical Epidemiology.
They said that even though the elderly may be more reticent about their sexual history, one should not assume that they are not at risk for HIV infection. The doctors looked at records of 43 HIV patients, aged 50 years or above, at the time they were diagnosed, from 1985 to June 1996.
Only two of them were women -- one was married to an Aids patient; the other was a prostitute. Most were drivers, labourers, technicians or teachers. They found that the number of such elderly HIV patients has quadrupled, from 4.8 per cent in 1991 to 16.7 per cent by mid-1996.
But the reasons for the increasing trend, they wrote in the journal of the Annals of the Academy of Medicine, were "not entirely clear".
"We found that these individuals were sexually active, and for those who were married and not widowed, many had no sexual relations with their respective spouse."
Of the 34 married patients, 15 had had no sex with their wife for more than six years. Eight were widowed and two separated. Only eight were sexually active with their wife for the last two years before diagnosis.
The doctors added, however, that some of them may have a sick wife who was unable to engage in sexual relations. Instead, 35, or about 81 per cent of the patients, were infected through unprotected sex with prostitutes. Most had visited prostitutes overseas.
And worryingly, more than half, or about 58 per cent, had already had Aids at diagnosis.
Elderly men with Aids have a poorer survival rate, an average of three months, compared with younger HIV patients. The authors urged doctors here to look out for common HIV symptoms in the elderly so that they can refer them for early treatment.
Symptoms include weight loss, prolonged cough and shortness of breath, and oral candidiasis (white patches on the walls of the mouth and tongue).
They added that doctors should routinely ask their elderly patients for a complete sexual history, dating back to about 10 years, since symptoms take time to surface.
They also urged that Aids prevention programmes, now focused on family values, pay attention to safe sex among older people.