imlach

This statistic keeps being bandied about as if it is surprising, yet somehow I don't quite understand it.....

Surely it is unsurprising given that 50% of the population is female, so you'd expect the AIDS male/female ratio to be 50% much like the population male/female distribution curve?????????

What seems more worrying is the lack of awareness in the younger age groups these days of HIV, syphillis, ghonorea, other STDs, etc.

Some are nasty, some affect fertility (without any symptoms!), and it's basically a mess.

Are condoms uncool again?

Jerome

As women are 20 times more likely to catch aids from a man, than a man is from a woman, I'm surprised that the figure for women is only 50%.

Also, consider the level of education in many of the nations where AIDS is a massive issue. A while ago, there was a big sex education program combined with the issue of condoms in an African country. Afterwards, the birth rate increased, despite the use of condoms. After investigation, it transpired that the guys were putting the condoms on their fingers (as per the demonstration) before having sex.

As for all the other STDs, ignorance is endemic in the west, hence the rise of most STDs.

fast bloke

Jerome - compare a man from a man and a woman from a man and you might see the balance


more fudge anyone

Chris L

Also the fact that many ignorant people still associate AIDS as some form of gay disease, which it plainly isn't and perhaps spelling it out like this will help people understand and take notice.

Scooby96

I heard the african epidemic is being accelerated by the fact that they (the africans (obviously not ALL of them)) think that in order to cure themselves they must sleep with a virgin

Leslie

I was lead to understand that Aids started in San Francisco which had a high population of practising homosexuals. That is where the disease was first noticed by the medical profession when homosexuals started to die off for no apparent reason with the loss of immunity to other illnesses.

I also read that the disease started in Africa because men were in the habit of having sexual relations with women in their anus to avoid them becoming pregnant.

At first it was not believed to be possible to catch it with a heterosexual relationship but events have shown that theory up.

It must be down to a lack of positive education of children at a young enough age to convince them of the real dangers before they get into sex. We certainly knew all about social diseases when I was a child.

Les

Chip

Think thats probablr true in third world countries but I would imagine its predominantly still a gay disease in the western world.

Chip

Peccant

Not unless you're stupid or you believe it really won't happen to you (which I think is the problem for far too many people)

Chip

Whatever happened to monogamy.

Chip

Jerome

Er, do you mean gay men are more likely to give it to each other? In that case you are right, but AIDS has dramatically declined in most western gay communities. Certainly in most of the countries where AIDS is an epidemic, gay sex is not really the problem because, unlike the PC west, homosexuality is considered unacceptable.

imlach

Sadly not. The latest figures show that that rate of increase in homesexual people is slowing, and rate of increase in heterosexual couples is showing high rates of growth

Don't believe the 'hype' about it being a 'gay' disease these days.

Saying that, a large proportion of people getting it in the UK have had contact with Africans, but this thing could easily snowball again.

Imagine if you have 5 one night stands. Every one of your partners could equally have had 5 one night stands. Each of these partners could have had 5 one night stands and so on & so on.

Effectively, it's not hard to have slept with thousands & thousands of "partners" if you're all not practicing safe sex.

imlach

Aside from HIV, chlamydia is also on the rampage at worrying rates.

While not as life-threatning as HIV, it can have severe complications, including infertility.

Most people don't know they have it, and it is rampaging in the teenage and 20's generations right now. These people may not want children now, but if they come to later life infertile, they will have huge regrets

Use a condom kids

Chris L

Imlach's right. It is foolish in the extreme to treat this a 'gay disease'. It was certainly true that the first cases were diagnosed in the gay community. Statistically that means that in total there are more gay men infected with HIV/AIDS in the UK than any other group of people.

However, for the last 5 years, the infection figures have shown a complete reversal. Catching HIV through a normal (for want of a better word) relationship now outnumbers 'gay' infections by almost 3:1. Talk to anyone who is gay and they are much more aware of the problem (and hence more careful) than most 'straight' people - this is why infections in the gay community have seen a dramatic drop.

To assume that it is still predominantly a gay problem is dangerous and fool hardy. How do I know all this? There is loads of research available on the Net and also having a couple of friends who are gay makes you more aware of the issues. If the rest of society treated it in the same way, there would be much less of a problem.

mart360

some of our so called cultural std,s are down to the whatever society we live in!!!

i remember the embarrasment of having to go to the qaucks, cos i thought i had picked up somthing nasty!! (luckily it was somthing totally unrelated)

these days it,s pills free, condoms with your 10 oclock break, a councilor if you get preggo , free hidden abortions ...

we allways do things **** about face(sic) not lets do somthing to stop it or prevent it.. its lets look after the poor chavs when it happens...

correct me if i,m wrong,, but isnt under age sex against the law??? regardless..

oh hang on pc britian here its there right innit!!!!!!

part of the problem is the i dont care culture we have today..

its a shame that syph or the other std, dont have more visual symptoms!!

prehaps a few exploding heads at school would get the message across

Mart

Jap2Scrap

I think it was phased out for MDF :P

Markus

You're winding us up, right? Please tell me you simply cannot be that naieve.

fast bloke

Sort of - What I was trying to say is that 'the reciever' (the one who ends up with bodily fluids in their orifice) will be the one to get AIDS. Given that women can never be 'the giver' (the one who doesn't end up with bodily fluids) it makes sense that it is a 50/50 split. Only a very small % of hetro men will get HIV from an infected woman, while a large % of women will get it from an infected male. It follows that the spreaders will be either gay or bi, otherwise they would probably not have become infected already. Straightforward mathematics that is difficult to put into words.

Markus - no doubt you will wish they are dead anyway - (cos they don't conform to your way of thinking)

Chip

No, just being a realist.

How HIV infection was probably acquired Male Female Total %
Sex between men 12534 0 12534 61%
Sex between men and women 2631 2724 5355 26%
Injecting drug use 867 344 1211 6%
Blood/tissue transfer or blood factor 750 116 866 4%
Mother to infant 292 278 570 3%
Other/undetermined 214 28 242 1%
Total 17288 3490 20778 100%
Percentage Total 83% 17% 100% 100

These are UK statistics

http://www.avert.org/aidsyounggaymen.htm

I also think its a real shame so much time and money are spent on aids compared to fighting the biggest killerwhich is cancer.

Chip

Chris L

Also from that site Chip:

"The male to female ratio of HIV diagnoses made before 1989 was more than 10 to 1, whereas in 2003 the ratio for new diagnoses was 5:4"

Also

"At the end of September 2004, it was reported that 51% of infections had occurred in men having sex with men, 38% through heterosexual sex, 7% through injecting drug use and 2% from mother to child.

Each year until 1999, there were more new HIV diagnoses in men who have sex with men than in any other group. Since then, heterosexual contact has been the major route of infection in the UK, rising to 66% of new diagnoses in 2003"

Because it was originally found in the gay community, then there are obviously going to be more gay men infected as they have been exposed to virus for much longer. It was probably 8-10 years before people actually realised what was really happening.

HIV/AIDS is a massive global problem with no sign of a real cure. The problem in this country is relatively mild compared to parts of Africa, but that doesn't mean we don't have a huge responsibility to educate people and look for a cure. AIDS research isn't done at the expense of cancer research.

NotoriousREV

I read a report from the US that looked at risk factors. Basically the "at-risk" groups were bi- and homosexual men, women who had sex with bi-sexual men, drug users who were sharing needles and men who had sex with women who had sex with bi-sexual men. If you were outside of these at-risk groups the liklihood of contracting HIV was tiny (note: not impossible) which actually suprised me.

Of course, how do you know that the woman you're sleeping with hasn't slept with a bloke who's slept with a man etc etc.?

damian666

When I was at school there was a quaint mnemonic:

Got Aids Yet?

Leslie

I think Mart 360 has made the most telling post so far.

Les

Markus

Actually no, I don't. I don't have any problem with gays (male or female). I happen to have a few gay friends.

Chip - Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but you're saying that you see aids as mainly a homosexual male thing, and that due to this, there should not be a lot of money/research poured into it, and it would be better spent on cancer research?

Oh, I don't have a problem with cancer research, is one of the few charities I dontate to (especially testicular cancer charities), I also donate to aids charaties too, you just never know.

Chip

Markus,
Right or wrong, Yes I do see Aids as a mainly homosexual disease. Likewise I relate cancer deaths to smoking. And yes I do know it affects others as well through transfusions etc.

As for research there IS more government money spent on Aids research than cancer research.

Chip

MATTeL

So wrong on two points there then.

AIDS/HIV are NOT a mainly homosexual disease. It is a virus that can be passed from person to person through blood or sexual fluids (not saliva though). It is in the decline in the gay community due to better education and precautions.

Cancer is not just related to smoking... tell that to my 2 year old nephew whose parents don't smoke and has very little time left as the cancer is now in his spine.

Closed minds are like umbrellas in the rain... useless.

Chip

Errr, the vast majority of people would associate cancer with smoking.I know its not just caused by smoking but from the gov website:

Smoking is known to cause lung cancer and heart disease, and it contributes to a range of other diseases and conditions. Smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, responsible for 90 per cent of all lung cancer cases. It is estimated that each year over 120,000 people in the UK die from smoking-related causes, constituting around a fifth of all deaths

As for Aids I would also say that a vast majority of people, especially those over 35 would associate it with homosexual sex.

Of course all the Aids research has been supported by pop stars, actors and many from the entertainment industry. Even Cherie Blair is poking her nose in its so trendy to support it. I just with they would support cancer as much as it has affected me as much as anyone.

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...ght=euthanasia


I dont have a closed mind at all. I have an opinion.

Chip.

Brendan Hughes

I was furious to read the headlines a few days ago when UNAIDS did their big presentation. It was all about how "almost half the AIDS sufferers are women" - I thought "wow, so the majority are men then - why all the fuss about the minority of women?" Their message was correct, but put across REALLY badly - it's not the absolute majority or minority that matters, what they should have stressed (and I eventually found it buried halfway down the article after reading three or four different articles) was the acceleration rate, that women are getting AIDS at a far, far higher rate than men and at this rate will grossly outstrip the male segment in not very long at all.

Bloody stupid bit of PR from a bunch of raving feminists. They had a valid point, put it across wrongly and made themselves look idiots, IMHO.

Chris L

From the Global Health Council:

"By the end of 2003, women accounted for nearly half of all people living with AIDS worldwide, and represent almost 60% of infections in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, young women are several times more likely than young men to contract the disease through heterosexual contact. Worldwide, 62% of infected young people are girls, and that number soars to 75% in sub-Saharan Africa. A woman’s vulnerability to the virus is attributable not only to biological differences, but also to deeply entrenched socio-economic inequalities that further compound her risk.

Because 70% of the world’s poor are women, women have fewer economic options. They are far more vulnerable to engaging in transactional sex to pay for food, school fees and other necessities. They are also vulnerable to coercive or forced sex and often unable to negotiate condom use.

Many women, particularly married women, cannot control the circumstances under which sex takes place. Women are especially unable to negotiate sex or condom use with a husband who may have extramarital partners. Some research indicates that married women are in fact more at risk for HIV than unmarried women because they are more frequently exposed to intercourse within marriage.

HIV-positive women may transmit HIV to their children during pregnancy, in childbirth or through breastfeeding. Today, mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV is the primary mode of acquisition of HIV for the more than 2 million children living with HIV. While antiretroviral therapy significantly reduces the risk of MTCT of HIV, only 1% of women in need currently have access to this preventive therapy.

As AIDS ravages families and communities, the burden of caring for ill family members rests mainly with women and girls — many of whom may be seriously ill themselves. A woman affected by HIV/AIDS is plunged further into poverty, losing the ability to provide for herself and her children. Combined with pervasive social stigma and the collapse of traditional family and support structures, HIV/AIDS is eroding the status of women in many countries."

Sort of blows the AIDS is a gay disease out of the water don't you think?

MATTeL

Chris - To Chip is probably won't. Apparently cancer is only caused by smoking as well.

Chip

Never said that. Read my post as I clearly stated:

Chip