Warning Issued Over HIV Rise

New HIV diagnoses rose 5 percent in Australia last year, to 1,051 from 998 cases in 2006, according to a report released today in Perth at the Australasian Sexual Health Conference 2008. Since 1999, HIV diagnoses have increased by almost 50 percent, the National Center in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research in Sydney said. New infections are being driven by gay men, heterosexual miners, and businessmen who vacation or work in Asia.

"These relentless increases show our current investments in HIV programs are just not sufficient to reverse the rate of HIV infections in Australia. We’re still heading in the wrong direction," said Don Baxter, head of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations.

In the past 10 months, the Cairns Sexual Health Service diagnosed six men with HIV who had engaged in risky sex during brief trips to Papua New Guinea (PNG), said Dr. Darren Russell, director of the service. "It indicates the HIV epidemic in Papua New Guinea is becoming more generalized, which puts these men at greater risk, and in that climate the numbers will only rise," Russell said.

Baxter warned that gay male tourists traveling to Asian cities such as Bangkok and Beijing should also be more cautious, since epidemics among gay men there are "raging virtually unchecked." Australia has an obligation to fight HIV in the region, especially in PNG, which Baxter said lacks effective prevention programs.

In Victoria, HIV infections stabilized from 2006 to 2007 after an unbroken series of annual increases since 1999, the report said. While Victoria’s government boosted HIV prevention funding last year, Baxter attributed the slowing infection rate to gays being more careful after an HIV-positive man was charged with intentionally infecting other men.

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