LISBON, Dec 15 (AFP) - Portugal, the nation with the highest HIV infection rate in Europe, is facing a surge in infections among a previously little affected group -- those over 50.
The number of people in this demographic registered as being infected with the virus which causes AIDS rose from 819 at the end of 1999 to 1,402 at the end of last year, a 71 percent jump, health ministry figures show.
Of all new infections recorded in 2003, one in five were among those in this age group.
The jump in infections contrasts with the situation in other European nations where the sharpest increases in HIV are among the under 30s.
Officials say the spike is linked to a number of factors, ranging from more active sex lives among older people due to the arrival of anti-impotence drugs like Viagra and the belief that HIV is mainly a youth problem, to low condom use among an age group no longer concerned about pregnancy.
All of these factors are compounded by the lack of safe sex campaigns aimed specifically at older people, in part because of a reluctance to talk about the topic with them, advocates say.
"Prevention strategies up to now were not thought of to take into account of people in this age group. This has to change," the director of prevention programs at Portugal's National Commission Against AIDS, Paulo Nossa, told AFP.
Research shows that older adults are among the least informed demographic group when it comes to HIV.
Part of problem is that there is a widespread perception in Portugal, particularly among older people, that HIV is mainly a risk to injecting drug users as this group has been especially hard-hit by the virus.
Nearly half of the roughly 25,000 cumulative cases of HIV reported in the country at the end of June were among intravenous drug users, one of the highest proportions in Europe.
But needle exchange programs have helped stop the rise of the disease among drug users and increasingly the virus is being spread by sexual contact.
Among those over 50, unprotected sexual contact with an infected partner accounts for virtually all cases of HIV infections, health officials say.
Roughly three-quarters of those infected with the disease in this age group are men, who in some cases contracted the virus during sexual encounters with prostitutes who were infected as a result of drug use.
Among infected women over 50, almost all appear to have contracted the virus through their husband, health officials say.
Many of them first learn of their partner's infidelity when they they are diagnosed with HIV, which deals a double emotional blow.
For both men and women over 50 with HIV, the harmful effects of the disease are aggravated by the physical toll of old age.
Those in this age group are often shunned by their families after they disclose their illness, health workers report.
Maria de Fatima, 57, says her sisters and parents refuse to touch her, or eat anything she cooks, since she told them she has HIV.
"They treat me as if I were a monster but I am the same person," she told Unica, the magazine supplement to weekly newspaper Expresso, last month.
"I am being punished without having done anything wrong. They have all pulled away from me when I needed them most."
With HIV infections continuing to rise in Portugal, unlike in other European nations, the health ministry is planning to revise its public education efforts to include more campaigns that specifically target different groups, including those over 50.
Portugal had an HIV incidence rate of 228.4 cases per one million people in 2003, the highest rate in the then 15-nation bloc.
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