Hong Kong AIDS Foundation expressed concern over a total of 651 additional cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections in 2014 reported to the Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health, and the uprising trend of HIV infection among the men who have sex with men (MSM) community.
In the past 2 months, Hong Kong AIDS Foundation provided voluntary HIV counselling and testing for around 100 MSM service users. According to the findings of the survey conducted with service users with high risk sexual behaviour, around 40% of the respondents indicated that the reason for not adopting safer sex measures had to do with the “steady relationship” with sex partners. The definitions of “steady relationship” were different among the respondents, ranging from a few months, one month, to even a few days. From the perspective of preventing HIV/AIDS transmission, undertaking unsafe sex merely due to “steady relationship” without complete knowledge of the partner’s sexual history, will greatly undermine the awareness of protecting oneself and the partner, increasing the risk of HIV infection.
To strengthen HIV prevention education among the MSM community, the Foundation organises group activities on sexual orientation, love and sex for the young MSM community, to raise their awareness of safer sex starting from investigating the value of love and sex. Also, the Foundation will continue to promote early and regular voluntary HIV counselling and testing and encourage service users to understand their health condition.
Please call 2513 0513, our hotline, or search “hkaf.hivtesing” through Facebook, for more information on the Foundation’s support group and voluntary HIV counselling and testing service.