HIV prevalence in upper socioeconomic level hospital patients, 1991-1993

Five elite, private hospitals in Bangkok serving the upper socioeconomic stratum of Thai society were sampled for HIV prevalence among unlinked, anonymous specimens collected from general inpatients (sampled 11/1991 to 1/1992) and from women in labor (sampled 5/1992 to 4/1993). The HIV-1 antibody positivity rate by ELISA/Western blot was 0.45% (9 of 2,000) among all inpatients, and 0.1% (1 of 1,000) among pregnant women. The latter rate was appreciably lower than rates between 1 and 2% found in sentinel surveys among pregnant women in public hospitals during comparable time periods, suggesting the epidemic is more advanced in lower socioeconomic groups.