:BC-AIDS-FRANCE

FRANCE CONSIDERS MANDATORY TESTING FOR AIDS VIRUS

PARIS, Dec 11, Reuter - France, Europe's most AIDS-ravaged

nation, said on Wednesday it was looking into the possibility

of

mandatory testing for the killer virus.

Official spokesman Jack Lang said the Socialist government

would try to establish in coming months if there was a

national

consensus for mandatory testing for the HIV virus which causes

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

No cure for AIDS has yet been found.

``Possible mandatory testing will be the object of a big

national consultation next year,'' Lang told a news briefing

after a regular cabinet meeting.

He did not say what form the consultation would take but

France's top AIDS researcher, Professor Luc Montagnier, has

advocated a referendum to decide how to track down the virus.

AIDS has so far killed 8,500 people in France. A further

16,000 are suffering from the disease.

Doctors have diagnosed 70,000 people as being HIV-positive

and believe 130,000 others are unknowing carriers of the

virus.

Attention has recently focused on AIDS after revelations

that officials of the National Blood Transfusion Centre (CNTS)

knowingly allowed HIV-infected blood to be used in transfusion

between 1980 and 1985.

REUTER JNC HH HP