Things aren’t so well in the ‘land down under’. Australian HIV infection rates increased by more than 8% in 2011,
according to a study to be released today. The annual surveillance study into sexually transmitted diseases (STD) in Australia shows the latest rise contributes to a 50% growth in infection rates over the past 10 years. The report also shows diseases like gonorrhoea and chlamydia are becoming more common. There were 1,137 new HIV diagnoses in 2011, up from 719 in 1999.
The director of the National Centre in HIV Social Research, Professor John de Wit, says there is also concern that as many as 30% of HIV cases could be going undiagnosed.
“While Australia has one of the highest rates of HIV testing in the world among gay men, we see that about 60% of gay men have tested in the past 12 months which means there could be a substantial number of people living with HIV who are not aware,” he said. Much of the increase is put down to unsafe sex among gay men, who Mr de Wit says now view HIV/AIDS as no longer life threatening.
“It’s now chronic, manageable, which makes it less of a threat, which means that people take more risks than they would have done.” He says if the rate continues to increase, there are dramatic implications for public health as well as individuals. “HIV still is a serious condition. There are effective treatments but they do involve taking pills every day for over the course of one’s life,” he said. “It’s a substantial burden on people’s health as well as it is on the health system and on the economic system.
In the past few years Internet websites and smart phone applications have created new ways for gay men to get together, in some cases for casual sex.
“We’ve been dealing with HIV and AIDS for almost 30 years now and what you have to do with any behavioural change campaign is to reinforce that,” says Bill Whittaker from the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS .
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