The frequency of people living with HIV reporting at least one unprotected intercourse within six months has almost doubled over the past decade.
For several years, surveys have shown an individual relaxation of prevention practices with regard to the risk of transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. A recent study confirms this risk, including in HIV + people. Presented last Friday at a research seminar of the National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS), it followed 967 homosexual and heterosexual HIV-positive people of both sexes for 9 years. The results are clear: between 2000 and 2009, the frequency of people declaring at least one year of unprotected sex in the previous six months rose from 19.5% to 36.3%.
Most worrying is that the frequency of unprotected sex in the HIV-positive population continues to increase. Indeed, the team of researchers who have just presented these results seems to indicate that the first data for the years 2010 to 2012 point in the same direction. There is indeed a continued increase in such unprotected sex among people infected with HIV. This increase has been observed among homosexuals, whether they have regular or occasional partners, and among women. On the other hand, in heterosexual men, these researchers rather observe a stabilization of this risky practice.
These researchers have tried to understand the reasons for such an increase. In particular, they tried to see if it was linked to the recent development of the concept of Treatment As Prevention (TASP). A method that consists of putting HIV-positive people who want it earlier on antiretroviral treatment. In addition, these scientists wanted to verify whether the statement in 2008, by the Swiss authorities that the risk of transmission of the virus was negligible in seropositive people whose viral load was undetectable under treatment, had been able to have an influence on behavior. In their study, the researchers found that there was no link between participants’ viral load and their risk of having unprotected sex.
On the other hand, another study conducted by the ANRS on 2633 seropositive also does not show a difference in the frequency of unprotected sex between patients with an undetectable viral load and those who were at greater risk of transmitting. For the authors of the latter, these results suggest that it is not the concept of non-transmission that has led to this disinhibition of sexual behavior in recent years.
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