Get tested annually, gays urged as HIV rates rise

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Times

Gay men are being urged to practise safe sex and have an annual HIV test in an attempt to halt a rise in infections in the UK.

HIV infection is contining to grow, although the rate of increase has slowed, according to figures from the Health Protection Agency.

Last year 6,840 new cases were recorded, slightly fewer than in 2006. More than a third — 2,630 — were gay men, making 2007 the third successive year that new diagnoses among gay men have exceeded 2,600.

An estimated 690 new HIV diagnoses last year were thought to be via heterosexual transmission, compared with 730 cases reported in 2006. Increased testing is likely to have contributed to the high number of diagnoses, the agency said.



Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3642928.ece

[seriousstan]

1. Complacency.

[xchrom]

2. disease fatigue.

at some point every one wants to feel like the water is safe to go in again -- it just isn't and one gets tired of always being on the 'alert'.

[Moloch]

3. Its the cottaging and public sex....

which spreads HIV faster than anything else... While it is almost always gay men, I'm sure straight people would involve themselves in these sort of trysts if only they could find women to go along with it.

Public sex should really be cracked down on because it is a health menace.

[pitohui]

4. why, does the virus know you're having sex in public?

not sure of the logic of this

seems like you can play safe and wear a rubber or use safer sex techniques and be on a stage having sex in front of an entire club and you would not transmit the virus

or you could be sneaking around and not playing safe because "i'm not that kind of person" and you could transmit the virus?