Aug 15, 2008  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

Gay and bisexual men have always been at the center of the HIV/AIDS crisis in America, but the global epidemic is typically framed as most affecting heterosexuals in developing nations. Data unveiled last week at the 17th International AIDS Conference show that around the world, men who have sex with men, like their U.S. counterparts, are the group hardest hit by the deadly disease.

“One thing that was clear is that men who have sex with men in every country that it has been studied in are 10 to 30 times more likely to have HIV than the general male population,” said Walt Senterfitt, an AIDS activist with the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project.

The trend holds true across Asian countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, African nations such as Kenya, Senegal and Zimbabwe, and in Latin America, where gay and bisexual men account for a majority of new HIV cases.

“Men who have sex with men have long been getting infected in these countries,” said Senterfitt, who attended the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. “It’s just nobody was looking for it.”

The seven-day conference was one of the first to shine a spotlight on the experiences of gay and bisexual men across the globe. In one of the most moving moments, Jorge Saavedra, head of Mexico’s AIDS prevention program, came out publicly for the first time during a speech calling for more funding for prevention efforts targeting gay men.

After the speech, he was thronged by men from Africa and India, the Associated Press reported.
“They told me that I was a hero, and that they wished they could do the same in their countries,” Saavedra, who drew applause when he displayed his partner’s photo during the speech, told AP.

The conference highlighted gay-related research from Ukraine, Cuba, Malaysia and many other countries. Complicating HIV prevention efforts is that homosexuality remains either illegal or so taboo that it provokes violence in certain parts of the world, highlighting “the need for supporting basic human rights for men who have sex with men in many countries in the world,” Senterfitt said.

The silence around homosexuality is a severe impediment to gay men in those countries receiving effective HIV prevention education. When researcher Michelle Geiss sought permission to do a gay-related study in the African nation of Togo, government officials told her there were no homosexuals in the country, Geiss said at the conference.

When Geiss located gay men in Togo, where homosexuality is still illegal, some of the study participants reported believing they were not at risk of contracting HIV because they did not sleep with women, and they believed it was a heterosexual disease.

But there are also bright spots in the international fight against HIV in gay and bisexual men, such as in Cameroon, a West African country that has cut its HIV infection rate among gay and bisexual men by almost 50 percent in the last six years. Also, more than 1,500 gay and bisexual men enrolled in a study in Peru that administers anti-AIDS drugs to HIV-negative individuals with the hopes that the drugs will prevent them from contracting the disease.

While drawing attention to the plight of gay and bisexual men across the globe, activists also used the conference to again call for a greater intensity in the fight against HIV in U.S. gay men, particularly black gay men. Recent Centers for Disease Control & Prevention figures show gay and bisexual men account for 53 percent of HIV infections in the U.S. in 2006, and are the only demographic experiencing “consistent increases” in HIV infection rates.

“It does not have to be this way,” said Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC’s HIV prevention division. “We need to ensure that HIV does not become a rite of passage for gay and bisexual men.

“We know that we need to have more culturally competent interventions moving forward, and part of that cultural competence will be looking at interventions that focus on structural factors which address poverty, which address housing, which address racism and which address homophobia and which address homelessness in our society,” added Fenton, who is gay.