Arab world has lowest rate of AIDS

WASHINGTON -- The Arab world, ruled by conservative mores, has the lowest rate of Aids in the world.

A CIA report on AIDS said the Middle East and North Africa region has the lowest HIV infection rate.

"Conservative social mores, climatic factors, and the high level of health spending in the oil-producing states tend to limit some globally prevalent diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and malaria," the report, released on Monday, said.

But the CIA said another reason for the low rate of AIDS is "probably due in part to above-average underreporting because of the stigma associated with the disease in Muslim societies."

The report, entitled "The Global Infections Disease Threat and Its Implications for the United States," was released as the National Security Council deemed AIDS as a national security issue for the United States. White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart cited what he termed the "staggering" and "destabilizing" numbers of deaths AIDS is causing in some African countries.

"They have an impact on us," he said. "We have an interest in Africa, as far as our own national security, and we need to look at this problem -- as the NSC has done, very much so this year, but going back over the last couple of years as a national security issue."

The CIA report, completed in January, said "new and reemerging infectious diseases will pose a rising global health threat and will complicate U.S. and global security over the next 20 years. These diseases will endanger U.S. citizens at home and abroad, threaten U.S. armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions in which the United States has significant interests."

The CIA report said that terrorist might seek to spread diseases such as AIDS and malaria in biological attacks.