Rates of new HIV infections are increasing among Hong Kong’s men who have sex with men (MSM), according to Raymond Ho Lei-ming, senior medical officer of the city’s Centre for Health Protection. To counter this trend, he advised bolstered condom use, improved prevention campaigns and increased testing, reports Hong Kong’s The Standard.
According to the article, the Centre has received 121 reports of HIV infection during the second quarter of 2008, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 3,822 since 1984.
Ho told The Standard that 98 of the cases were male and 23 female, while 33 were infected through heterosexual contact and 33 through same-sex contact. Nine of those infections were passed through shared needles and two through blood transfusions. The vector of infection for 44 of those cases was undetermined.
Ho warns that if efforts are not taken to better address infections among MSM, then HIV rates in this group may reach levels seen in Bangkok—where one in three gay men are HIV positive—by 2020.
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