By Pamela Fayerman
A new BC study on young gay and bisexual men suggests a trend toward risky behaviours despite nearly two decades of warnings about the need for safe sex.
The average infection rate among study participants, who were followed for just over a year, was nearly two per cent per year.
If that continues, says study co-author Dr. Robert Hogg, within 20 years, 25 per cent of gay men will have HIV.
"The over-all rate is consistent with other studies in other cities," said Hogg, an epidemiologist with the departments of epidemiology and of pathology at the University of BC.
"It's not extremely high but it shows that HIV/AIDS is not going away, and over time (because of a long incubation period and a compounding effect) an annual HIV incidence rate of one to two per cent will translate to a prevalence of 25 per cent within 20 years."
The study, by doctors at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS at St. Paul's Hospital and UBC, is published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal today. It involved questionnaires, HIV testing and follow-up queries with 681 men with a median age of 25 as of May, 1998. The majority (81per cent) were homosexual, 12 per cent bisexual and the rest celibate.
Follow-up questionnaires showed that among those with regular partners, just under 30 per cent said they had unprotected sex anal sex; while 15 per cent of those with casual partners had unprotected sex.
Alcohol and drug use, which has previously been associated with sexual risk-taking, was reported by nearly three-quarters of the study participants.
Since 1982, when the first AIDS cases appeared in BC, studies documented gradually decreasing HIV incidence, from a peak of 11.5 per cent of gay and bisexual men in 1984 to less than one per cent in 1995.
One explanation for the recent upswing in infection rates is that increases in unsafe sexual behaviour are coinciding with the availability of more effective treatment.
The study says that other researchers have postulated that sexual risk-taking may be due to fatalistic attitudes and a desire to escape the "rigorous norms and standards required for a lifetime of safer sex."
Study co-author Dr. Martin Schechter said the infection rate was higher (2.5 per cent) among study participants under age 25. Among men who prostitute themselves for money, drugs or other items, the incidence was as high as 9.5 per cent per year.
"That means that we have to constantly update the interventions and redouble our efforts when it comes to safe sex messages," Schechter said.
The younger gay males don't have that message internalized
as much as older males. They're thinking they want to be independent,
they have this sense of invincibility and they don't want to hear
negative messages. So we have to come up with news ways of getting
the message out."
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