Get AIDS sense or pay price

ON the eve of the 20th anniversary of the controversial Grim Reaper television campaign, health experts are warning that the number of HIV cases will continue to rise unless the Government funds a national campaign to raise awareness of AIDS.
The number of new HIV diagnoses in Australia increased 41 per cent between 2000 and 2005, after years of decline.

"We need a national campaign to target the younger generation, who just aren't aware of HIV and AIDS," said Bill Bowtell, director of the HIV-AIDS project at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

Mr Bowtell helped to create the Grim Reaper campaign.

A spokeswoman for federal Health Minister Tony Abbott said the Government was still considering whether to proceed with a $10 million AIDS-awareness campaign. "We've commissioned research on what a campaign might cover," Mr Abbott said. "That research has not been completed."

Mr Bowtell said the then government's support for the Grim Reaper campaign in 1987 played a significant role in reducing the rate of infections.

"By comparison, the US government did nothing to raise awareness of HIV-AIDS and it now has 10 cases more per capita than Australia," he said.

"But the people who were 20 at the time of that campaign are now 40, and we need a campaign specifically targeted at young people.

"It doesn't necessarily need to be on TV. We need to look at how the younger generation communicates, through YouTube, mobile phones and the internet, to find the best way to target that market and prevent them from getting HIV."

Mr Bowtell warned that the spread of HIV in Papua New Guinea and Asia posed a serious threat to Australia.

"In Port Moresby hospital, 60per cent of the beds are taken up by people with HIV," he said.

"More than two million Australians go overseas every year, and a certain percentage will have unprotected sex."

The director of the University of NSW's National Centre in HIV Social Research, Sue Kippax, said Australia had become complacent about the growing threat of the virus. "HIV has killed 25million people worldwide and 40 million are infected," she said. "Because people with HIV are living longer, there is a concern that younger people now think it's a chronic disease that can be treated with medication. They don't realise how hard it is to live with HIV."

More than 6600 Australians have died from AIDS since 1982.

David Menadue was only 29 when he was diagnosed with HIV in 1984. He developed AIDS in 1989 and has since battled a string of life-threatening complications caused by the disease.

"When I got AIDS in 1989 I was told I only had two years to live," Mr Menadue said.

"I've had six different AIDS-defining illnesses -- each one of them took a toll on me, but for some reason I've survived."

source:www.theaustralian.news.com.au