doctor who injected his former lover with HIV

In the United States a doctor who injected his former lover with HIV infected blood was sentenced to 50 years in prison.²²

A group of researchers at the University of Alabama claimed to have discovered that a particular type of chimpanzee, once common in West Central Africa, was the source of HIV. The researchers suggested that HIV-1 was introduced into the human population when hunters became exposed to infected blood.²³

Reports started to emerge from South Africa of rape cases involving young girls. It was suggested that a popular myth that sex with a virgin could cure AIDS was the root cause of this increase in child rapes.²⁴ Later on in the year, the South African President Thabo Mbeki claimed that the anti-HIV drug AZT was toxic and could be a danger to health.²⁵

According to the annual World Health Report, AIDS had become the fourth biggest killer worldwide, only twenty years after the epidemic began.²⁶

The Ugandan ministry of Health started a voluntary door-to-door HIV screening programme using rapid tests in an effort to reduce the spread of HIV. This effort was intended to make HIV screening services accessible to more people, especially in rural areas where there were neither modern laboratories nor electricity to run standard HIV tests.²⁷ Since 1986 the Ugandan government had implemented a number of successful initiatives, and whereas in 1992 it was estimated that 30% of adults in Kampala were living with HIV, by 1999 the figure had fallen to 12%.²⁸ However, HIV/AIDS was still a considerable health problem in Uganda. It was estimated that 820,000 adults and children were living with HIV/AIDS as at the end of 1999.²⁹

In the UK a judge ordered that a five-month-old baby girl should be tested for HIV against her parents' wishes. The baby's parents refused to have their daughter tested, contending that she was perfectly healthy and that they should have the right to decide what was best for her.