Aids peak From new tests to new viruses

The latest catchphrase in the war against AIDS is something called prevalence testing. Policymakers, researchers and health officials all want to know just how far the AIDS virus, called HIV-1, has spread in the U.S., but they disagree vehemently on how to go about it. After months of resisting President Reagan's calls for mandatory testing, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop last week told reporters at an AIDS conference in London that he hopes this spring to screen every student at a still unchosen urban U.S. university with a population of 25,000. Said Koop: "That would give you a pretty good idea of the prevalence in that age group in an urban setting."

The modest proposal has been cautiously embraced by some university officials, though others question its usefulness. "I don't think a testing program at a university will yield objective data on the distribution of the disease," says Boston University President John Silber. "People who don't think they have AIDS are not going to be very interested in getting their arm punched just for the hell of it." Notes Dr. James Brown, director of student health services at the University of California, Berkeley: "I don't think doing it on one campus is going to tell you anything." The President reportedly introduced the idea of testing college students last summer at a Cabinet meeting, where it was strongly opposed.

Meanwhile, physicians at the New Jersey University of Medicine and Dentistry last week reported the first case in the U.S. of infection by a second deadly AIDS virus, HIV-2. The strain was first discovered in West Africa in 1985; since then some 100 cases have turned up in Western Europe. The reason for concern: blood tests for HIV-1 do not always detect HIV-2, making it possible for the infection to slip through AIDS-screening procedures in blood banks.

The infected patient is a native of the Cape Verde Islands off the western coast of Africa. Her diagnosis was quickly confirmed at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta with specialized blood tests that are not yet commercially available. CDC officials insist that her HIV-2 infection is an isolated case. Epidemiologists have screened nearly 23,000 U.S. blood samples for HIV-2 in the past 13 months without finding a single case. Says the CDC's Gerald Schochetman: "At present there is no great concern."

Despite widespread criticism, Washington continued last week to try to stem the spread of the epidemic by educating the population at large. Before the London parley ended, the chief U.S. delegate, Assistant Health Secretary Robert Windom, announced that the Administration plans to mail a new brochure on AIDS prevention to every household in the country later this year.