AIDS in 5 Nations Called Security Threat

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

ANGLEY, Va., Sept. 30 — Rates of infection from the AIDS virus in five of the world's most populous countries are rising so fast that they pose potential security threats to their regions and to the United States, a group that advises the Central Intelligence Agency said here today.

The countries — China, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and Russia — have 40 percent of the world's population and by 2010 will have more H.I.V.-infected people than any other five countries, an agency official said.

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By 2010, the number of infected people in those countries will grow to an estimated 50 million to 75 million, from the current estimate of 14 million to 23 million, said the group, the National Intelligence Council. It is composed of individuals from the government and academic and private sectors.

H.I.V., the AIDS virus, could harm the economic, social, political and military structure in each of the five countries, a C.I.A. official said in releasing the declassified parts of the council's report.

H.I.V. would spark tensions over spending priorities, driving up health care costs and sharpening military manpower shortages, Dr. David F. Gordon, a C.I.A. official and the report's author, said at a news conference at the intelligence agency's headquarters here.

For instance, Dr. Gordon said, the AIDS epidemic in Russia is likely to help shape how that country emerges in the post-Soviet era. Up to one-third of prospective conscripts to Russia's military services are deemed unfit for service because of H.I.V. or chronic hepatitis from drug use, the report said.

Dr. Gordon said the AIDS epidemic could generate political tensions in Nigeria, a major oil producer. He also said the epidemic could weaken Nigeria's peacekeeping role for the United Nations in Africa.

Nigeria's leadership has been the most active among the five countries in trying to raise awareness about AIDS, in part by publicly warning about the risk of "extinction" of Africa's population, the report said.

"The Nigerian military, concerned about the loss of key personnel from AIDS, now mandates training about the disease for soldiers," it said.

In Ethiopia, many soldiers contracted H.I.V. during the civil war in the 1980's by having contact with multiple sex partners. When the war ended in 1991, thousands of infected soldiers and prostitutes returned home, spreading H.I.V. and AIDS in their villages and towns, and the threat continues, the report said.

Although the governments of China, India and Nigeria are beginning to focus more attention on the threat, it said, all five countries need "dramatic shifts in priorities" to control their epidemics by 2010 because the disease has built up significant momentum, health services are inadequate and the cost of education and treatment will be overwhelming.

The report was given to the governments of each of the five countries about two months ago as a measure to help them combat their epidemics, Dr. Gordon said. Although replies have not been received, the group looks forward to a dialogue with the countries, he said.

Dr. Gordon now directs transnational issues for the C.I.A.

The AIDS epidemic is in a different stage of development in each country, but in all of them it is in a much earlier stage than it is in the worst-affected areas in central and southern Africa. In all five countries, risky sexual behaviors are fueling the epidemic, but the rates of spread differ, the agency said.

H.I.V. is spreading to wider circles through heterosexual sex in India, the movement of infected migrated workers in China and frequent amnesty releases of large numbers of infected prison inmates and rising prostitution in Russia.

The council said that in deriving its estimates, it gathered data from governments and nongovernmental organizations and consulted extensively with scientific and AIDS experts in and out of the American government. But it did not collaborate with the governments of the five countries.

The report cautioned that there was a strong likelihood that the inconsistent use of anti-H.I.V. drugs and the manufacture in foreign countries of unregulated, substandard drugs would probably lead to greater spread of drug-resistant strains of H.I.V.

The report is the latest in a series of papers by the National Intelligence Council on AIDS since the late 1980's. It expands on one the group issued in December 1999 on the global threat of infectious diseases, including H.I.V., on the United States. The United States has declared the global epidemic of AIDS a national security threat.

The findings also generally affirm a similar bleak warning issued by the United Nations at the 14th international conference on AIDS in Barcelona, Spain, in July, its first long-range forecast of the global epidemic. At that time, the United Nations said AIDS would claim an additional 65 million lives by 2020, more than triple the number who died in the first 20 years of the epidemic, unless more countries vastly expanded their prevention programs.