HIV, syphilis on the rise in Bangkok By Cheryl K. Chumley Bangkok is experiencing a resurgence of HIV and syphilis cases among gay men, U.S. and Thai authorities reported on Friday.
The number of syphilis cases have more than doubled in gay men between 2005 and 2011, from five percent to 12.5 percent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. And the number of HIV cases in the gay male community rose from 24.5 percent to 29.4 percent during that same time frame, the report said, in Agence France-Presse.
“These data show ongoing and increasing epidemics of HIV and syphilis infection among [men who have sex with men] in Bangkok,” the report authors found.
In 2003, when the team that wrote the study first started collecting and tracking data on HIV, the prevalence of it was 17 percent, AFP said.
The data only came from the CDC based on patients who went to one particular clinic in Bangkok and asked for sexually transmitted infection testing, AFP said. The findings are not representative of the entire gay population in Thailand.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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