CASUAL attitudes towards sex among modern-day Irish people are contributing to a worrying rise in HIV infection, a health expert warned yesterday.Prof Sam McConkey, head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons, said 405 people were diagnosed with HIV last year, the highest number since records began in the 1980s.
New figures for the first six months of 2009 revealed that the trend was continuing, with 210 new cases diagnosed, compared to 212 during the same period of 2008.
The largest number of new cases up to June was among heterosexuals (82), followed by gay men (72) and intravenous drug users (18).
Speaking in advance of World AIDS Day, which is today, Prof McConkey, who treats HIV patients in Dublin's Beaumont Hospital, said he was extremely concerned at the rise and pointed to the contrasting fall in cases in African countries.
Several thousand people may currently be HIV positive and unaware of it but engaging in risky sexual behaviour.
He said factors such as unprotected sex, the rate of 'partner change' and sexual activity among minors were contributing to the spread of the virus.
"Average, normal people" who are not injecting drugs are being diagnosed with the disease, frequently having been positive for years and having slept with numerous partners.
Prof McConkey said couples about to embark on a physical relationship should first have a HIV test as a matter of routine.
Symptoms
"We found in one study that people had vague symptoms of HIV, such as weight loss or rashes and went to a doctor or hospital but were not tested for the disease.
"HIV testing should be part of the normal run of tests carried out by GPs -- some people may be asymptomatic for 20 years," he pointed out.
The earlier that HIV is diagnosed, the earlier treatment can begin. This would reduce the levels of the virus -- as well as the chances of passing it on to another partner.
He said anti-retroviral drugs, which came on the market in the mid-1990s, had been extremely successful in reducing the viral load in most patients, and someone that was diagnosed with the infection could live on for a further 37 years, it is estimated.
However, around 8pc have already progressed to AIDS by the time they are diagnosed and, depending on their illness, it may end up untreatable.
Prof McConkey said it was essential that the problem was tackled from a number of fronts, and a new co-ordinated strategy, driven by a special unit in the HSE, was needed to raise awareness of the threat.
There is an urgent need to increase the number of sexually transmitted infection clinics nationwide, he said.
Despite the risk posed by potential carriers of HIV and other diseases such as syphilis, not one such clinic exists in the north-east of the country, Prof McConkey said.
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