The last I checked, the fastest growing number of new infections was in african-american women, followed by gay men 16-24. HIV infection, along with hepatitis-B and C are, sadly, quite common in the gay community. Infection rates are higher in some parts of the country than others, but it's everywhere. On the west coast, syphillis is also at almost epidemic levels in northern California. Why do you ask?
Because all the gay people I know in my life had died from it (that's only 2). I know its common with gay people, but I wanted to know if its so common that its unavoidable.
-_- All the gay people you've known in your life is 2? Not to devalue their loss but you've only known 2 people. There's a lot more gay people out there who live full lives. I have a couple LGBTQ people at my clinicals. In-fact, I have a trans-woman. She doesn't have AIDS/Hep and she's nearly fully functional, as functional as you get at 95. It's not too common to have HIV/AIDS. It can be prevented with good sex practices. It's not like 90% of gay people have it.
Depends on what you mean by "unavoidable". If you mean actually becoming HIV+, then it's utterly avoidable. I conservatively know about forty or fifty gay guys, and I know of only two who are HIV+. Seems pretty avoidable from that vantage point. Lex
Honestly, you're more likely to get in an auto accident or die of natural causes... mostly because you can't manage or control the risk of an auto accident or natural causes. On the other hand, we know how HIV is transmitted and we know how to manage the risk.
BTW, i have a family member who's been POZ since the mid 1980s. His Rx does him well, and he takes real good care of himself.
People of African descent are more likely to have a variation of the DARC gene that helps fight off malaria. Unfortunately, the gene also seems to increase a persons susceptibility to HIV
HIV in sub-Saharan Africa is a different strain (HIV-2) than the strain most common in North America and Europe (HIV-1). HIV-1 is more common in men who have sex with men (MSM) and IV drug users (IVDU). That is beginning to shift slightly as women of color are increasingly infected. HIV-2 seems to primarily affect heterosexuals.
Depends where you live. Also one must consider that the stats that are kept focus more on behavior rather than on orientation. A study entitled "HIV incidence and correlates among homosexual men in the Montreal omega cohort study: The role of unprotected anal and oral sex." [link to abstract: http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102237964.html ] investigated seroconversion among MSM in Montreal and concluded that "a MSM of 18 years old would have a 22% probability of becoming infected by age 50". In Vancouver it is estimated that 15% of the approximately 20 000 MSM have the virus. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/141485.php
Last statistics I saw there were very few cases in my province. Risk higher than a straight white, non-shared needle using male? Perhaps, but not by orders of magnitude.
The best source of data on HIV in the US is the website of the Centers for Disease Control (cdc.gov). A new report was issued last week and is online.
