Lack of correlation between the incidence of bloodborne AIDS and overall AIDS incidence in Western Europe

BACKGROUND: The incidence of bloodborne AIDS and the total incidence of AIDS in various areas of the United States are strongly correlated. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: To determine whether the same held true for Western Europe, date for 1985 through 1993 from the World Health Organization's European Non-Aggregate AIDS Data Set and for 1985 through 1992 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's AIDS Public Information Data Set were compared. Incidence rates per million population were adjusted for reporting delays in each country and age-standardized (world standard population). RESULTS: In Western Europe, there were no significant correlations between the annual incidence of transfusion-associated (TA)- AIDS (correlation coefficient, r = 0.38) and that of hemophilia-associated AIDS (r = 0.24) and the corresponding incidence of all AIDS cases. Whereas similar age-specific incidence rates for hemophilia-associated AIDS emerged in all countries examined, those for TA-AIDS varied and increased greatly with age in France and the United States. Male-to-female ratios of TA-AIDS ranged between 0.5 in the United Kingdom and ≤1.5 in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. CONCLUSION: Lack of significant correlation between the incidence of bloodborne AIDS and that of all AIDS in Western Europe points to important, but little-quantified sources of variation by country in the safety of blood and blood derivatives. Higher rates of TA- AIDS in the elderly and in males in some countries suggest international differences in transfusion practices by age and sex.