We aren't just getting one snapshot of one group of high-risk people in one place. We have a constellation of data sets now all converging at higher incidence estimates. The current rate of new infections with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, among San Franciscan gay men is 2.2 percent, up from 1.04 percent in 1997, according to new estimates reached by city researchers and health experts. That translates into about 748 new infections projected for this year. The infection rate for gay men who also inject intravenous drugs was estimated to have more than doubled to 4.6 percent, compared with 1.9 percent in 1997.
Nobody likes to have to negotiate sex, and nobody likes to have to use condoms.
Coates said that, ironically, the successful new AIDS drug treatments may be one reason for the rising level of new infections. The drug treatments, though they suppress many symptoms of the disease, do not necessarily stop transmission of the virus. This is going to happen anywhere where chemical methods are introduced to control the virus that are not perfect. San Francisco's initial projections of rising AIDS infection rates last year was the first to illustrate a direct link between new HIV infections and an increase in risky behavior among gay men whom experts have tracked during the last five years. Quick action by the city's gay community and public health officials also made San Francisco a model for the fight against AIDS, pushing new HIV infections down from an estimated high of 6,000 in 1982 to a fairly steady 500 a year throughout most of the 1990s.