Meanwhile there continued to be concern about the public health aspects of AIDS. This was particularly the case in San Francisco where all the gay bath houses and private sex clubs were closed. Some gay men regarded the closures as an attack on their civil rights. But Mervyn Silverman, Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health stated the public health view as follows:
"There are certain places where things are allowed and certain places where they are not. You can't have sex at the McDonald's. You generally cannot have sex in the pews of a church or in a synagogue. People don't feel their civil liberties are being in any way abrogated because of that."80
Researchers who had visited Central Africa in late 1983 reported they had identified 26 patients with AIDS in Kigali, Rwanda, and 38 in Kinshasa, Zaire. The Rwandan study concluded that, "an association of an urban environment, a relatively high income, and heterosexual promiscuity could be a risk factor for AIDS in Africa".81 The Zairian study found there to be a "strong indication of heterosexual transmission".82
In light of these findings the Zairian Department of Public Health, in collaboration with American and European scientists, launched a national AIDS research programme called Project SIDA.83
By the end of 1984, there had been 7,699 AIDS cases and 3,665 AIDS deaths in the USA, and 762 cases had been reported in Europe.84 85 In the UK there had been 108 cases and 46 deaths
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