14 DAY TRIAL // With all the massive campaign against HIV, the infection is booming amongst young homosexual men in New York City, as stated a preliminary data from the Health Department. Since 2001, HIV diagnoses among MSM under age 30 have risen by 33%, from 374 to almost 500 in 2006.
The numbers were double among MSM aged 13 to 19, while older MSM experienced a decline by 22%. The under-30 age category now makes 44% of all new cases among MSM in New York City, a rise of 31% from 2001.
"We are very concerned about the increase in HIV among young men who have sex with men. We're headed in the wrong direction. Unless young men reduce the number of partners they have, and protect themselves and their partners by using condoms more consistently, we will face another wave of suffering and death from HIV and AIDS.", said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, Health Commissioner for New York City.
"These numbers are devastating. After 26 years of AIDS, we cannot drift backward. We must ask all New Yorkers to accept some responsibility for helping our young people protect themselves. Their lives are not dispensable.", said Debra Frasier-Howe, president of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS.
Blacks and Hispanics still had a disproportionate percentage of the new cases in New York City. Blacks were twice more likely to get infected with HIV than whites (232 versus 101) were, and Hispanics by 55% more (157 versus 101). Among adolescents, the difference is staggering: 93 % of the new HIV cases on MSM under age 20 were Black or Hispanic (81 out of 87). The most affected boroughs were Queens (49%) and Manhattan (57%), while Staten Island was the only one that actually saw a decrease in the number of HIV infections since 2001.
The most affected areas of Manhattan were East and Central Harlem (a growth of 115%, from 26 to 56), and in the Chelsea and Clinton areas (a growth of 56%, from 25 to 39).
To see the recent trends in HIV infection, this analysis excluded already registered HIV/AIDS cases, pointing to the fact that the infection has developed for many years.
In 2006, 20 % of the HIV cases amongst gay men had the AIDS diagnosis (285 men), thus, besides the fact that anti-HIV treatment for them was late, they could have spread the virus to others.
The new HIV data correlated with a recent Health Department report revealed a boom in the number of syphilis cases among MSM in New York City in the first three months of 2007. The syphilis infections incresed in all age categories of gay men, and 50 % of the newly diagnosed cases with syphilis in New York City were co-infected with HIV.
This is a dangerous mix, as syphilis caused genital sores increase the HIV contamination probability, while HIV decreases immunity, aggravating the syphilis attack.