Texas LGBT activist groups are warning both gay and straight daters to be extra careful in using those ‘hook up apps,’ following the scary discovery of some 16 fast growing clusters of HIV infections which have been discovered in San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
“Laboratory analysis of these infections indicates sustained transmission of genetically similar types of HIV,” a memo to physicians from the Texas Department of State Health Services says. “Many of the persons within these clusters reported meeting sex partners through social media. The clusters are primarily comprised of gay men and other men who have sex with men, with evidence that active HIV transmission is ongoing.”
Brett Camp, who heads the AIDS Health Care Foundation, says one of the problems is complacency, among especially gay men about the dangers of AIDS, now that treatments have been developed which no longer make HIV the automatic death sentence it was in the 1980s.
“Prevention efforts have not had the emphasis they did for a very long time,” he said.
The group Impulse, which advocates for safe sex practices especially for gay men, says it is of ‘paramount importance that everyone be educated on this rising epidemic and take action.’
Camp says the fact that these clusters have been discovered indicates that science is moving quickly to use DNA testing, just like is used to determine family history, to trace AIDS clusters like these.
“They now have the ability to link how people were infected,and if we have somebody who is a 'super infector'," he said.
Each of the clusters has infected between 5 and 25 patients, with a total of about 200 infected statewide, according to state health department figures.
Doctors are being urged to order HIV testing for every patient who presents with a sexually transmitted disease, and to warn patients of the risk that these HIV clusters present.
Impulse says it is also concerned about another rise in what it calls ‘HIV stigma’ due to the clusters.
IMAGE; GETTY