According to new study led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men continue to have disproportionately high risk of HIV infection in countries of low, middle and high income globally.
The study was published in The Lancet.
"While HIV rates have flattened overall in recent years, we're really concerned that the HIV epidemic is continuing among gay men and we're going in the wrong direction," notes study leader Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH, the Desmond M. Tutu Professor of Public Health and Human Rights at the Bloomberg School and president of the International AIDS Society. "It's a tragic situation and it's painful that the history of AIDS is looking like its future, but that's actually where we are. But the first step in taking on a problem is recognizing and articulating it and we've really done that here."
"It's painful that the history of AIDS is looking like its future, but that's actually where we are," said Beyrer, who is also president of the International AIDS Society. "But the first step in taking on a problem is recognizing and articulating it, and we've really done that here."
For the study, the scientists looked into medical research published between January 2007 and October 2015 to identify any improvements but little progress has been made.
In the meantime HIV infection rates are decreasing among heterosexual men and women in various countries. Many people with the virus are also living long lives with the assistance of antiretroviral treatment. But this isn't the case among gay men, even in middle- and high-income countries, the researchers said.
"Stigma and discrimination continue to play a very big role in these epidemics," Beyrer says. "In many countries, these men are just not welcome in health clinics and the fear of discrimination stands in the way of not only treatment, but even just the testing that can go a long way toward stemming the spread of disease."
More than 1.2 million people in the United States are living with HIV infection, and almost 1 in 8 (12.8%) are unaware of their infection.
Blacks represent approximately 12% of the U.S. population, but accounted for an estimated 44% of new HIV infections in 2010. They also accounted for 41% of people living with HIV infection in 2011.
