A Swiss study is sounding the alarm: one in three patients infected with HIV no longer protect themselves during intercourse.
According to a Swiss study presented by the University of Zurich, published in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases, one in three heterosexuals suffering from HIV would have given up using condoms in 2013. This dramatic figure has been rising steadily since 2009. The number of gay men affected by HIV who do not protect themselves has increased from 5% to 15% during the same period.
On the basis of 12,000 people questioned in Europe, scientists were able to observe that if the use of condoms was stable between 2000 and 2009, the decrease has been very real in recent years. It is HIV positive heterosexual men and women who have sex with casual partners who protect themselves the most. If a decrease is also visible here, they are almost 97% to use a condom.
At the scale of Switzerland, the study recalls that these figures increased from the moment when the CFPS (Federal AIDS Commission, a Swiss institution responsible for the various problems related to the disease) had declared that a person suffering from HIV and receiving antiretroviral therapy could not transmit the virus if all the conditions were met. This relaxation, observed in most countries, would be the extension of the idea that AIDS is treatable and is no longer fatal. Even if all the health agencies do not fail to point out that it is imperative to protect oneself, whatever the situation. Especially since HIV is not the only risky sexually transmitted disease in the absence of a condom. Indeed, study figures show that syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydias were also on the rise between 2009 and 2013.
In France, 150,000 people are living with AIDS and 30,000 of them are unaware of their disease. Despite increasingly strong campaigns, the disease is still present. The willful transmission of AIDS is a criminal offense punishable by law.
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