Sex, HIV and Condom use amongst Gay Men in the UK
July 22nd, 2008 | by
Roger |
Click to Enlarge
Roger Pebody at Aidsmap provides an outline of the results presented in this 2008 report but amongst this mine of information there is one piece of information that is particularly interesting and that is illustrated in this first graph
This graph illustrates HIV testing history amongst the respondent according to their number of male partners during the last year (2006). For the non-specialist it reads as follow:
On the X axis or bottom line is the number of partners a respondent to the survey had sex with during the last year. On the Y axis or left side is the cumulative percentage of respondents who had an HIV test or did not have a test, and if they had a test were either HIV+ or not.
For example, amongst the respondents who reported only one sexual partner during the last year, 55.3% took an HIV test, of whom 4.5% tested positive. By comparison, amongst the respondents who reported more than 30 sexual partners during the last year (and that is 1 in 8 of the 12,000 respondents to the survey!) 83.4% had and HIV test, of whom 19.7% tested positive.
“Ever having tested was most common among men with the highest numbers of male partners in the last year, and was increasingly uncommon among men with fewer numbers of partners.”
This may be explained by the fact that men who have more partners are more aware of the risks and therefore are more inclined to get tested. But this could be a confounding factor, and other reasons may explain this observation, such as age, geographic residence, and level of education.
The important point here is that the prevalence of HIV amongst men who have multiple partners is higher than in those who have less partners with the caveat that not all men with a low number of sex partners get tested.
Click to Enlarge
“Compared to the men who had tested HIV positive, those whose last test was HIV negative were 1.8 times more likely to have had only one partner in the last year and those who had never tested were 2.8 times more likely to have only one partner. Conversely, men who had tested positive were much more likely to have had thirty or more partners than men whose last test was negative or who had never tested.”
Now the big question is “what about condom use in this group of men who had more than 30 partners during the last year (and again that is 1 in 8 of the 12,000 respondents) and of which 29,2% are HIV positive?”
Here comes the bad news: 64.1 % of men who had sex with a man in the last year and reported more than 30 sexual partner over the year had engaged in unprotected anal intercourse at least once. This does not mean that all of those who are HIV positive and have sex with numerous partners always dispense with condoms, but there are some good chance that a relative proportion of them do.
The survey also shows that “Engagement in anal intercourse increased stepwise with increasing numbers of partners. Compared to those with one partner, those with 30 or more were 6.67 times more likely to have had anal intercourse. Unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) showed a slightly different patten. Compared to those with one partner, UAI was less common among those with 2-4 partners, equally common among those with 5-12 or 13-29 partners, but was more common among those with 30 or more partners.”
This survey reports many other interesting observations but the fact that HIV positive men who actively engage with a large number of sexual partners do so without condom is worrying. Condom fatigue, despair, awareness that effective treatment is available? Who knows. More studies are needed and more targeted prevention too.
| 2.8 |
Of Gay Men and Sex...
AIDS heterosexual pandemic, not (yet) in Asia, but thriving in Africa...
Conspiracy too, kills...
Female condom: Love in a pack of crisp?...
Quality Information needed...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
