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Positive men largely unaware of their status
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HIV Positive men more likely to have unsafe sex, says shock report
"It was men who were aware of their HIV-positive status who reported the highest levels of sexual risk"
Details of a new survey done on gay men in bars, clubs and saunas have shown that not only are 41% of infected men unaware of their positive status, but that even if they have been diagnosed positive they are more likely to indulge in unsafe sex than those men who know they are negative.
The findings come from a survey of over 3,500 men carried out in five cities across the UK, where respondants were asked to donate oral samples for testing, and show that a total of 9% of all respondants were HIV positive. Younger men were more likely to be HIV negative than older ones, while 62% of men who tested HIV positive assumed they were negative.
"It is possible that men who only have safer sex could have been more willing to participate in the survey," says researchers. "Therefore underestimating actual levels of sexual risk behaviour." The findings obviously show that more needs to be done to persuade men who are aware of their HIV positive status to stick to safer sex behaviour.
"It was men who were aware of their HIV-positive status who reported the highest levels of sexual risk, and the higher likelihood of unprotected anal sex with two or more partners among men diagnosed over a year earlier, suggests that maintenance of safer sex behaviour may be problematic for men living with HIV," said the researchers from the MRC and the UCL Centre for Sexual Health and HIV Research.
