Australians Lax on HIV

Infectious diseases expert John Dyer told an Adelaide, Australia, medical conference Saturday that improved treatments had made HIV a manageable condition for many patients. However, as a result, people were less worried and more likely to take risks. "HIV remains an incurable and potentially fatal infection with major impacts on health and quality of life, even with effective antiviral treatment," said Dyer, a senior consultant at Adelaide's Flinders Medical Center.

As people become less concerned about safe sex, there has been an increase in STDs, such as gonorrhea. "People in high-risk populations are not always adhering to safe sex practices," said Dyer.

HIV seems to have disappeared in terms of public health awareness in Australia, he said. But while there were fewer AIDS-related deaths, people were still being infected with HIV. Dyer called for more education to reinforce the safe sex message, especially for young people. Proven public health strategies, such as needle exchange, also need to be reinforced. While the HIV epidemic in Australia was small compared with some countries, it could still reemerge as a major public health threat. Dyer said that in developing countries there are 40 million infections -- a number expected to keep rising in the next decade.

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