Laws that criminalize their behaviors are driving up HIV infections among persons in high-risk groups, the UNAIDS chief said Monday. Eighty-five countries criminalize consensual same-sex relations between adults, including seven that apply the death penalty, said Michel Sidibe. Repressive laws also make it hard for sex workers and injection drug users to access HIV prevention and treatment services, he said.
In China, Kenya, Malawi, and other countries, about 33 percent of new HIV infections are in men who have sex with men, representing a major increase, Sidibe said.
Even in the United States, "It seems like we have come full circle," Sidibe told journalists at a UN Foundation luncheon in New York City. More than 50 percent of new US HIV infections last year occurred among MSM, and the infection rate was even higher for those ages 19-25, he said. Sidibe blamed this on the failure to deliver appropriate HIV prevention messages, complacency, and treatment optimism. Treatment optimism also affects Europe and Africa, he noted.
"You have 70 percent of new infections occurring in Eastern Europe and Central Asia among drug users, but they are criminalized," Sidibe said. "They don't have access to services. They have to hide themselves and go underground."
Of the estimated 16 million injection drug users worldwide, almost 3 million are HIV-positive, and of these less than 4 percent have access to HIV treatment, Sidibe said. "It's the same for [MSM]," he said.
In Nigeria, over 30 percent of 1,000 the new infections daily are among high-risk groups including drug users, sex workers, and MSM, Sidibe said.
Sidibe called for prevention campaigns in major cities worldwide to jump-start "a prevention revolution."
03/16/10
GLOBAL: New HIV Infections Increasing Among Homosexuals
Source: Associated Press:: Edith M. Lederer; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention