title: Preventing the heterosexual spread of AIDS: what is the best advice if compliance is taken into account?
abstract: It has been recently advocated that avoiding partners who may be at high risk of carrying HIV provides 5000-fold better protection against HIV infection than usage of condoms [1]. In this paper, it is demonstrated that this guideline is largely based on unrealistic assumptions. If the sensitivity of identifying high-risk partners, realistic estimates of the efficiency of mechanical and chemical barrier methods, and the compliance in following either strategy are taken into account, use of condoms and/or suppositories containing nonoxynol-9 might be more effective than the attempt to avoid high-risk partners. Thus, both barrier methods should be strongly recommended for casual sexual heterosexual contacts.
authors.affiliation: Dept Computer Science, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15260.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Wittkowski
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003275:Contraceptive Devices, Male; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010349:Patient Compliance; D013089:Spermatocidal Agents; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D013089:Spermatocidal Agents