HIV on the rise among straight men in Australia
pharmafile | September 24, 2018 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | AIDS, Aboriginal, Australia, HIV, Kirby Institute
The number of new HIV diagnoses is on the rise among heterosexual men in Australia, according to a new report released by the Kirby Institute.
However while male-to-male sex continues to be the major risk factor for HIV exposure, there was an 11% decline in the number of cases in which male-to-male sex was the most likely exposure over the past five years. Furthermore there was a 15% decline in the number of HIV infections related to male-to-male sex between 2016 and 2017.
Nevertheless, HIV exposure relating to heterosexual sex and intravenous drug use were shown to be on the rise.
The new data also highlighted the fact that in 48% of cases, diagnosis was late and as such patients had unknowingly lived with HIV for four or more years.
Professor Rebecca Guy of the Kirby Institute commented: “Being diagnosed late with HIV can affect a person’s immune system and their health and they also may pass the infection unknowingly to someone else.”
Meanwhile the data also raised awareness of the plight of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, among whom there are twice the rates of new HIV diagnoses than the rest of the Australian population. Overall there was a 41% increase in the number of new diagnoses among the Indigenous populations between 2013 and 2017.
The study suggests that “Overall, these data highlight the need to maintain and strengthen strategies of health promotion, testing, treatment and risk reduction, but also to expand and promote PrEP and other forms of prevention to people who could benefit from these strategies and increase prevention initiatives in people born overseas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”
Louis Goss
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