Report on the Global HIV/AIDS epidemic

I

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - June 2000
implementing needle-exchange and other prevention programmes has been considered too high for such programmes to be started or maintained. As a result, there
are continuing high prevalence rates among injecting drug users in many highincome countries. In Canada, nearly half of all new HIV infections occur in this group.
In Spain, a recent study in Barcelona found a prevalence rate of 51% among injecting drug users.
Among gay men (see pages 65-70), the virus had spread widely before it was even
identified and had established a firm grip on the population by the early 1980s. With
massive early prevention campaigns targeted at gay communities, risk behaviour
was substantially reduced and the rate of new infection dropped significantly during
the mid- and late 1980s. Recent information suggests, however, that the frequency
of risk behaviour may be increasing again in some communities. This and the effects
of therapies that keep infected people alive for longer have added up to slowly rising numbers of people living with AIDS - an effect illustrated by data for gay men in
San Francisco in the USA, shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Number of AIDS patients, AIDS deaths and patients on
antiretroviral therapy among men who have sex with men
(MSM), San Francisco, USA, 1980-1998
8000
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
- MSM with AIDS - AIDS deaths among MSM - MSM taking antiretroviral drugs

Source: San Francisco Department of Public Health (California), USA, 1999

20