JEDDAH, 22 July — An AIDS patient, who was living under a bridge in Jeddah, suddenly disappeared leaving his belongings behind, evoking concerns that they could be a health hazard, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported yesterday.
The patient disappeared after the Arabic daily reported about his life under the bridge. Jeddah police had contacted the daily to locate him. "Nobody knows where the man has gone," the paper said but believed that health authorities might have taken him to an isolated place.
The man had left his bed, a wheelchair, a water cooler and other personal belongings under the bridge, the paper said.
Such materials are not known to spread the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Dr. Haris Manzoor Khan, a microbiologist, said the HIV virus is transmitted most commonly by unprotected sex with an infected partner. It also spreads through contact with infected blood or drug users sharing needles or syringes contaminated with infected blood. Other sources of infection include blood and blood products, semen, vaginal and cervical secretions and breast milk. HIV is also present in negligible quantities in saliva, tears and blister fluid. However, it is not present in urine, feces, vomit and sweat.
Saudi Arabia boasts the world’s lowest rate in AIDS cases.
The number of reported AIDS cases in the country is 1,000 including 366 women. But according to Dr. Abdullah Al-Hoqail of King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, about 11,000 Saudis may have contracted HIV.
Twenty years after the identification of the HIV virus, it continues to ravage the world. Some 40 million people now are infected. Someone, somewhere, becomes infected every six seconds; someone dies every 11 seconds.
