• Steady relationships as a setting for HIV-transmission in gay men -- a 16-year follow-up of seroconversions (MoPpC1101 Poster Presentation)
  Authored by U. Davidovish, J. De Wit, N. Albrecht, R. Geskus, W. Stroebe, R. Coutinho (Netherlands)

Studies have shown that the security of a steady relationship may lead gay men to take more sexual risks. To see if steady partners could be an important source of HIV infection, researchers examined a cohort of gay men in Amsterdam that has been followed for 16 years and identified 143 men who had become infected with HIV since 1985. The source of HIV infection could be identified in 133 of the men. Information about sexual behaviors using a questionnaire was collected routinely. An interview was conducted after seroconversion.

Men younger men than 33 years old were more likely than older men to acquire HIV from a steady partner. Acquiring HIV infection from a steady partner appeared to be a trend that had increased over time: between 1985-87, only 12% of younger men were infected by a steady partner, but this increased to 46% from 1996-2000. This means that younger men now have a higher risk of getting HIV infection from a steady partner than they did earlier in the epidemic, and that younger men were more vulnerable to infection by their partners than older men were.

This means that gay men need to be aware that the risk of seroconversion does not lessen with a steady partner, and that patients and physicians alike need to reinforce the safe sex message so that younger men can avoid HIV infection.