Young ignore Aids dangers

A LARGE number of youngsters are ignorant about the dangers of Aids. 'Many young people in Guernsey wrongly believe there is now a cure for Aids,' said director of public health Dr David Jeffs, adding that young people thought there was less of a danger now.

'There is evidence - a 340% increase in chlamydia diagnoses at the sexual health clinic over the past 10 years - that risk-taking in the form of unprotected sex is increasing locally. More cases of HIV/Aids could be the result.'

Dr Jeffs said that the island was applying best practise but people needed to be vigilant.

'If you don't practise safer sex, you could be at risk. Prevention has to be better than treatment.'

Around 23 Guernsey people are infected with HIV, which is statistically less than half the British rate and a small fraction compared with other European countries.

Guernsey introduced prevention strategies soon after Aids was discovered.

These include health education, behaviour modification, promotion of condoms, HIV and Aids testing and counselling, reducing mother-to-child transmission, needle exchange, blood safety programmes and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases.

He recently attended a joint meeting in London between The Royal Society of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health USA on prevention of HIV at which the issue of a potential cure for the disease was discussed.

Advances in medical science have produced microbiocide barrier gels which kill the virus and prevent transmission.

They are not a cure but help women better protect themselves.

The best hope for the future was the successful development of a vaccine against the HIV virus, but one will not be available within the next few years.

In the meantime, Dr Jeffs advised sexually active youngsters and adults to be extremely vigilant.