Worrying Aids trends in US

A new analysis of HIV diagnoses among "men who have sex with men" points to troubling signs of increases in new diagnoses among young men who have sex with men, US health officials reported Thursday.

Public health experts use the term "men who have sex with men," or MSM, because many of these men are not strictly homosexual or even bisexual.

Between 2001 and 2006, male-to-male sex was the largest HIV transmission category in the US, and the only one associated with an increasing number of HIV/Aids diagnoses, according to a report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The increase was highest among boys and men between the ages of 13 and 24 years who had sex with other males, particularly among ethnic minorities.

"To reduce transmission of HIV among MSM of all races/ethnicities, prevention strategies should be strengthened, improved, and implemented more broadly," health officials wrote in Friday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, publication of the CDC.

Testing is important
Testing is important, they add, because "after persons become aware that they are HIV positive, most reduce their high-risk sexual behavior."

The report describes trends in diagnoses of HIV/Aids in 33 American states that have confidential, name-based HIV case reporting.

Of 214 379 diagnoses during the study period, 46 percent were among MSM. The rate of new diagnoses declined in all other transmission categories - injection drug use, high-risk heterosexual contact, and other routes of transmission.

Among all MSM, the estimated annual percentage change was 1.5 percent, the great majority of which involved the 13 to 24 year age group (annual increase 12.4 percent).

Among racial/ethnic groups, the annual increase in the number of diagnoses among MSM was highest among Asian/Pacific Islanders at 12.1 percent, followed by a 3.6 percent rate among American Indians/Alaska Natives; however, these two groups accounted for fewer than 1 percent of all diagnoses made during the study period. The annual increase was 1.9 percent among both African Americans and Hispanics, and 0.7 percent among Caucasians.

In MSM younger than age 25, African Americans bore the greatest burden with 7 658 new diagnoses (annual rate of change 14.9 percent), followed by 3 221 new cases among Caucasians (9.4 percent annual increase) and 2 422 new cases among Hispanics (7.9 percent).

SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, June 27, 2008. – (Reuters Health)

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HIV/Aids Centre

June, 2008