Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The San Francisco Examiner, July 7, 2000
A BIG jump in the number of new HIV infections in San Francisco ought to serve as a double reminder. No one should be lulled into thinking that the AIDS epidemic is a thing of the past. And we should revive the educational and preventive efforts that dramatically cut the speed at which the virus was spread here during the late 1980s and '90s.
Figures released last week from city clinics show that new HIV cases last year nearly doubled from the year before, to 900. In three years, the rate of infections recorded by the clinics nearly tripled.
From the start of the epidemic two decades ago, complacency has been one of the chief deterrents to successfully fighting the human immunodeficiency virus.
Safe-sex practices can prevent transmission of HIV, and their use has been credited with cutting the deadly high rates of HIV infection that existed here in the early 1980s. As education and prevention - and new drug therapies - became commonplace, the number of AIDS deaths here began to level off a few years ago, and the number of new infections began declining.
But such life-saving caution has fallen on hard times, according to data collected by the city health department. The number of gay men who said they always use a condom fell from 70 percent in 1994 to 54 percent in 1999. And the number of gay men who said they had unprotected sex with multiple partners nearly doubled during that same time period, to 43 percent.
It's almost as if success breeds failure. As the news improves, and as the scare stories diminish, the amount of unsafe sex rises.
Because San Francisco is viewed around the country as a model of AIDS care and education, the sudden rise in infection rates here ought to serve as a nationwide warning. And the message couldn't be clearer, for public health officials and the public they serve:
Don't let down your guard; the war against AIDS hasn't been won.
In the last two decades, more than 18,000 people have died of AIDS in The City. Yet, a whole generation has grown up since then as the news locally about AIDS and HIV, while still grim, improved. This group, now coming of age, apparently has shed many of the inhibitions and cautions common just a few years ago.
It is this new generation that health officials need most to reach and convince about the dangers of HIV infection. These teenagers and twenty-somethings need to know that practicing safe sex is necessary and that it works in saving lives.
If they never hear, or ignore, that message, the infection and death statistics five years from now won't get any better - and could get far worse.
Pass the word.
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