Global leaders call for efforts to combat AIDS among gay men

At the opening ceremony of the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, World Health Organisation Director General Margaret Chan, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot and the prsidents of Mexico, Botswana, and St Kitts and Nevis called on governments to re-focus attention on protecting men who have sex with men, who make up a large and growing proportion of the epidemic in every part of the world.

Latest data from the Centers for Disease Control show that diagnoses among gay men have risen 75 per cent over the past fifteen years.

The worldwide statistics are shocking. Globally, men who have sex with men are 19 times more likely to be infected with HIV than the general population. In Latin America, which is hosting the biennial international AIDS conference for the first time men who have sex with mena re 33 times more likely to be infected than the general population. And although men who have sex with men make up nearly a quarter of those living with HIV in Latin America as a whole, programmes targeting men who have sex with men receive less thatn 1 percent of the total HIV spending in the region.

Yesterday the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) launched a report which studied 128 country reports submitted to United Nations and found that nearly half of the countries (44 percent) failed to provide any data whatsoever on gay men. All UN member countries made a commitment to monitor HIV in high risk groups, depite this the report found that 71 percent of countries said thatye did not have any information on the percentage of MSM reached by HIV prevention programmes.

The report also found that criminalisation of male-male sexual activity is a major driver of the epidemic. Seven out of ten of the countries with the highest HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men criminalise homosexuality.

In 2006 all UN member states committed to report on a total of 23 indicators relating to various aspects oft he HIV epidemic. Five of these 23 indicators are relevatnt to gay men and measure prevalence of HIV inrection, rates of HIV testing, HIV knowledge, condom use and accdess to prevetnion programmes. The fact that 77 countries did not report any data on HIV prevalence among gay men demonstrates indifference and lack of responsiveness to the epidemic among this at risk population.