DRUNKEN lads' holidays in Thailand and
Indonesia, involving unprotected sex with prostitutes, are boosting
Queensland's HIV rate.
And men
from north Queensland are picking up the virus from trips to nearby Papua New
Guinea, a country with one of the world's highest HIV rates.
The
alarming hike in the rate of human immunodeficiency virus, a forerunner to AIDs,
has led for calls to again push the safe-sex message amid fears young people
are becoming lax.
In
2010, Queensland recorded its highest number of new HIV cases - with 206 people
diagnosed - and the numbers are still climbing.
WA has
also recorded an increase but across the rest of the country figures remain
steady or have declined.
And
while most cases continue to involve gay men, the number of heterosexuals
contracting HIV is increasing.
Australian
Medical Association Queensland president Dr Richard Kidd said the increase in
WA and Queensland was likely due to the mining boom in those states.
"Young
men, isolated from their families, earning lots of money - and whether they are
going to Thailand and having sex with prostitutes or whether prostitutes are
coming in from other countries, the data doesn't quite tell us.
"But
they are both legitimate concerns."
He said
Thailand and Papua New Guinea had the highest rate of HIV per head of
population, with 1300 out of every 100,000 people diagnosed with the disease in
Thailand and 900 per 100,000 in PNG.
"I
would want to get that message out again about safe sex - I don't know how much
young men are aware that Thailand is the HIV capital of the world," Dr
Kidd said.
Health
Minister Lawrence Springborg said annual rates of HIV diagnosis had doubled in
the past decade: from 2.7 per 100,000 population in 2000, to 5.4 in 2010.
Mr
Springborg said these rates - the highest in Queensland since records began in
1984 - represented an alarming failure in public health policy.
"When
it comes to health, unlike Labor, I refuse to throw good money after bad and I
refuse to turn a blind eye to what are obviously ineffective campaigns at
reducing HIV diagnosis rates," Mr Spring- borg said.
He said
he would move to re-direct more than $2.5 million in grants that had, until
now, been channelled through the Queensland Association for Healthier
Communities.
"Instead
of this funding being administered by QAHC, which has published its intention
to move the core of its activity away from AIDS/HIV to more general political
issues, it will be moved into the control of an expert panel - a Ministerial
Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS.
KATE
KYRIACOU
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