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International News University of Toronto Researchers Study AIDS ResurgenceDecember 4, 2001 A team of University of Toronto researchers is setting out to determine what is driving up HIV/AIDS rates in Canada's gay community. Gay men accounted for 80 percent of new infections from 1981 to 1983, but by 1996 made up less than one-third of all new cases. Then, between 1996 and 1999, the number of new infections among men who have sex with men leapt 30 percent. Researchers are gathering information to find out what is causing this reversal of previous downward infection trends. The information from their study should help answer some worrisome observations about the AIDS epidemic highlighted in the annual report of UNAIDS. "Unless averted with renewed and more effective prevention efforts, resurgent epidemics will continue to threaten high-income countries where over 75,000 people became infected with HIV in 2001," the report warned. An estimated 4,190 people became infected with HIV in 1999 in Canada, according to the most recent data from Health Canada. The department estimated that at the end of that year, almost 50,000 people were living with HIV or AIDS. Experts have attributed the startling trend to such things as "condom fatigue," or a mistaken belief among younger gay men that AIDS drugs have transformed the disease from a death sentence to a chronic ailment. The research unit of the Ontario Ministry of Health is funding the study, which will begin in December and should be reported by this time next year. University of Toronto Professor Ted Myers, lead researcher on the study, said without up-to-date data on what is fueling the trend, no one can explain it with any certainty. Myers believes there is an urgent need to go back to the gay and bisexual community to find out why infection rates are rising again. A team of investigators will fan out across the province, recruiting participants where gay men congregate -- in bathhouses, gay bars, at parties. Myers hopes 5,000 men will take part in the survey. Toronto Star 11.28.01  This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update. |
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