icon- folder.gif   Conference Reports for NATAP  
 
  4th IAS (Intl AIDS Society) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention
Sydney, Australia
22-25 July 2007
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Significant rise in HIV in Australia: study
 
 
  Posted Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:33am AEST
http://abc.net.au
 
There has been a significant rise in the incidence of HIV in Australia, a new study says.
 
The study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, shows a 31 per cent increase in the number of new cases over the six years to 2006.
 
Study co-author Professor John Kaldor says risky sexual behaviour among gay men appears to have caused the trend.
 
"It looks like on a basis of some behavioural surveys we've done that the risk behaviours in some states kept increasing in the last five to six years, whereas in other states, particularly in New South Wales, it seemed to plateau or even go down," he said.
 
"That correlated to the different rates of HIV diagnosis."
 
Professor Kaldor has suggested that the growing incidence mirrors what has been happening overseas.
 
"We've actually seen increases of HIV diagnoses in gay men in a number of western cities over the last five to eight years," he said.
 
"It took a little bit longer for it to happen in Australia."
 
Risky gay sex 'behind HIV epidemic'
 
July 20, 2007 - 4:24PM
http://www.theage.com.au
 
Risky gay sex is behind Australia's sharp surge in HIV infections, a national study of hospital data has confirmed.
 
And while NSW has escaped the resurgence, other states such as Victoria have been hit hard, according to the report in the Medical Journal of Australia.
 
The major survey of HIV rates found that 12,313 Australians were infected with the lifetime disease in the 13 years between 1993 and 2006.
 
The number of new infections dropped 30 per cent in the 1990s and then climbed back to the same high between 2000 and 2006.
 
Professor John Kaldor, deputy director at the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, said the rise was due mainly to risky sexual behaviour among gay men.
 
Virus exposure through male-to-male sex accounted for 70 per cent of all cases, followed by heterosexual contact at 18 per cent.
 
In more than half of heterosexually-acquired cases, the person was born in or had a partner from a country with a high prevalence of HIV.
 
Exposure to HIV from injecting drug use was relatively rare, Prof Kaldor said.
 
The study also found that in NSW - historically the state with the highest HIV rate - numbers have remained stable for the past five years.
 
But in other parts of the country the trend was upwards, with Victoria now roughly equal to NSW in per capita diagnoses.
 
Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia also had significant increases.
 
Prof Kaldor said high-risk sex trends changed between cities.
 
In the late 1990s, gay Sydney men were the most likely to have casual unprotected intercourse, but this trend has since switched to Melbourne and Brisbane.
 
Prof Kaldor said there seemed to be a misunderstanding that HIV was no longer a serious disease.
 
"It's true treatments have improved a lot, but it's still very serious," he said.
 
"The treatments are still difficult and there are still several hundred Australians developing AIDS and dying every year."
 
The rise also raised questions about the effectiveness of current HIV prevention strategies, said Prof Kaldor, who called for new ways of promoting health messages to the gay community.
 
The findings were released ahead of the International AIDS Society conference to be held in Sydney from Sunday.
 
It will attract 6,500 delegates to hear the latest in new drug treatments, vaccine breakthroughs and risk reductions options like male circumcision.