This article appeared in the Province on October 29, 1997.
by Jack Keating
There is disturbing news for young homosexual males in Greater Vancouver.
Gay and bisexual men 18 to 30 are becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus -- believed to cause AIDS -- at twice the expected rate and at more than the reported rate for U.S. cities, says a study released yesterday by the Vanguard Project at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.
"These results point to a possible second wave of the AIDS epidemic among young gay men," said Paul Perchal of AIDS Vancouver.
The infection rate is three per cent among those studied, starting in 1995.
"If that infection rate continues, in the next 10 years a quarter of the young gay and bisexual men who don't have HIV will get it," said Steve Martindale of Vanguard.
"So there's already a good chunk who have HIV, and in the next 10 years another 25 per cent will get it," Martindale said.
He doesn't think that Vancouver has a higher rate than U.S. cities such as San Francisco and New York but that "our study is more comprehensive" and took into account sex-trade workers and injection drug users.
Martindale was surprised by the results, which were presented yesterday at the B.C. AIDS conference. The conference attracted 500 delegates from across Canada.
"I think as a society we need to recognize that certain communities are at risk and we need to move away from this idea that everyone is equally at risk. We know that specific communities are more at risk than others."
Dr. Steffanie Strathdee, manager of the Vanguard Project at the Centre, said: "This indicates that there are two overlapping epidemics of HIV in the Vancouver area."
For more information, contact:
Bonnie Devlin
Vanguard Project Coordinator
608 - 1081 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6Z 1Y6
Tel: (604)806-8306
Fax: (604)806-9044