Education slows sub-Sahara Africa AIDS

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., March 24 (UPI) -- Education is helping slow the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa after having the opposite effect during the early stages of the pandemic, researchers said.

During the early stages of the pandemic, researchers found that males with a higher than average education were more likely than others to contract the disease.

"Before the 1990s, in the impoverished regions of sub-Saharan Africa, even modest amounts of education afforded males higher income, more leisure time, and, for some males, greater access to commercial sex workers," lead author David Baker of Pennsylvania State University said in a statement. "HIV-infected higher-status males then spread the infection to both educated and uneducated women, which moved the disease into the general population."

Baker and graduate students John Collins and Juan Leon said AIDS had been seen as a homosexual, urban disease and either neglect or active misinformation campaigns in some African countries ensured that the preventative effects of education never took root.

However, among younger people in the region, formal education is emerging as a major preventative factor against new infections. Having some schooling did reduce the risk of HIV infections in the youngest group -- ages 15 to 24 -- by up to 34 percent in Guinea, Malawi, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, and Kenya.

The findings are published in the UNESCO journal Prospects, of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.