AIDS more infectious

[tom]

Suppose AIDS still required blood transfusion or sexual activity or such to spread, but had nearly 100% chance of doing so, even for, say, oral sex.
What changes?

[Xen]

There is almost no sex outside of marriage, the entire world becomes almost extremly sexually conservative. The organized religions have a field day with this.

[Glen]

Other than the oral sex, the rate of HIV transmission through these methods is fairly high.

I think you would see some increases in infection rate, but perhaps not as much as you might think.

[Dave Howery]

mosquitos would be a real problem....

[Glen]

Originally Posted by Dave Howery

mosquitos would be a real problem....

I don't believe that mosquitos were counted as vectors in this pod.

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by Glen

Other than the oral sex, the rate of HIV transmission through these methods is fairly high.

I think you would see some increases in infection rate, but perhaps not as much as you might think.

Sorry glen, but I really have to disagree with this comment. Go to the CDC site for truly accurate numbers, but in general terms, the transmission rateis about 5% for the recipient of anal sex, and about half that for the active partner; for vaginal sex it is about 3% and 1.5% and for oral-genital sex its about 1% or less if female; negligible if male

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by tom

Suppose AIDS still required blood transfusion or sexual activity or such to spread, but had nearly 100% chance of doing so, even for, say, oral sex.
What changes?

Almost everything. For a start, the initial trickle of fatalities would very soon become a massive epidemic. The reason HIV was detected was because of a number of deaths in the gay community ... in your scenario, this number would be HUGE from the cross infections from places like fire island in the 1970s.

Research would be FAR more heavily funded because of the, in your scenario, very real risk of the human population crashing to VERY low levels. That being said, the funding would probably have already produced, if not an vaccine at least a fully effective treatment course.