FED: Warning against AIDS complacency as death rate falls

AAP General News (Australia)
12-30-1998
FED: Warning against AIDS complacency as death rate falls

By Katrina Willis

CANBERRA, Dec 30 AAP - Australians were warned today not to become complacent about AIDS
despite a fall of almost 60 per cent in the number of deaths.

There were 63 deaths from AIDS reported in the first seven months of 1998, compared with
151 deaths in the first seven months of 1997, the latest issue of the Communicable Diseases
Intelligence journal states.

Men accounted for most of the deaths in both periods.

AIDS diagnoses were down also, with 117 in the year to July 31, compared with 205 in the
corresponding period last year.

The Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) said the figures were encouraging
but it would be wrong to suggest they heralded an end to AIDS in Australia.

"We welcome the figures which we believe to be associated with the benefits of new
treatments which have become available over the last couple of years," AFAO national president
Peter Grogan told AAP.

In particular, combination treatment, using several different drugs, was widely available,
although people using it needed a lot of support and there were numerous side effects, he
said.

"We are actually doing really well ... but it is not the time to think it's over and we can
stop worrying about it," Mr Grogan said.

"It is important that we don't become complacent in Australia and we need to recognise the
warning of people like Peter Baume ... of the potential for a new epidemic among injecting
drug users."

Professor Baume, of the University of New South Wales, earlier this week said an epidemic
could arise because of a rapid increase in cocaine trafficking, the fact cocaine users
injected the drug up to 20 times daily, and the withdrawal of certain syringe types issued
free by the NSW Health Department.

He pointed to the experience of the Canadian city of Vancouver which had a similar fall in
AIDS deaths and diagnoses a few years ago then saw the rates jump because of infection among
injecting drug users after cocaine arrived in the district and the government changed its
needle exchange program.

The number of people diagnosed with HIV in Australia this year was also lower than last,
although the difference was not as substantial as for AIDS diagnoses and deaths.

There were 433 people diagnosed with HIV to July 31 this year, compared with 482 in the
corresponding period last year.

Not all people who are HIV positive develop AIDS, a disease that attacks the immune system.

The National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research which compiles the statistics
was not contactable for comment today.

But Mr Grogan cautioned that the HIV diagnoses figures might be misleading as they did not
show whether the diagnoses were of people who had newly acquired HIV or had acquired it some
time ago.

AAP kaw/it

KEYWORD: AIDS NIGHTLEAD

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