AUSTRALIA: Health Groups Warn HIV Will Rise

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AUSTRALIA: Health Groups Warn HIV Will Rise

Sydney Star Observer (12.17.03) - Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Tim Benzie

New data from New South Wales Health show 224 people tested HIV-positive in the first six months of 2003, an 18 percent increase for the same period in 2001 and a 38 percent increase over two years. "We think that's a really major increase," said Lisa Ryan of NSW Health. "We also know that newly acquired HIV infections account for a greater proportion of those new diagnoses, so it's not just an artifact of people who have had HIV for a long time coming forward and being tested for the first time," she said.

Among factors contributing to the increase were the higher prevalence of STDs such as gonorrhea and syphilis, and the infectiousness of newly acquired HIV, said Ryan. Ignorance about condom use and safe sex were not considered major factors behind the increase.

"A lot of people... rush to the assumption that what we're talking about is younger people who haven't lived through the worst days of the epidemic and don't know any better," said Stevie Clayton, CEO of AIDS Council of New South Wales. But the majority of new infections occurred in men ages 25-50, said Clayton.

"There may be issues around men who have had relatively staid sex lives, who are wanting to experiment a bit more when they get older," said Clayton. "And to some extent there are issues around drug use that may be impacting on it to some extent as well."

NSW Health and ACON have joined with Australian Society for HIV Medicine, People Living With HIV/AIDS (NSW), and three metropolitan area health services to present an HIV action plan to combat the rise. Advertisements began recently.

"I don't think it's complacency, I just think people don't have a clear picture of what it's like to live with HIV at this point in time," said Ryan.
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