Petrelis Files

SF DPH: Only 396 New Gay HIV
Diagnoses in 2006

On January 8, the SF DPH HIV epidemiology department presented the latest HIV stats to the HIV prevention council in PowerPoint, and slide six of this Update of HIV in SF Presentation, says there were 772 gay/bisexual , 79 gay/drug user, 42 transgender, for a total of 893 new HIV infections for 2006.

The 893 figure is much higher than the number of new HIV diagnoses for the same year, presented in the recently published SF DPH study about how HIV is hyperendemic among gays here.

Table 1 of the study, third line down, "New HIV diagnoses," gives stats from the HARS, acronym for HIV/AIDS Case Registry, which I believe is maintained by the state and federal authorities, for men who have sex with men in San Francisco. Click here to read the table, on page 3:

2002
426

2003
533

2004
590

2005
454

2006
396

The researchers state there was "Controlling for reporting delay of one year" for the HIV figures, meaning, the 2006 won't rise, or, if it does, by not very much.

If you take the almost 400 number from the study and compare it with just the 772 number from the presentation to the prevention council, you'll see a large discrepancy.

Not sure why that is, but the five-year HARS figures in and of themselves are highly noteworthy.

The figures document not an endemic, to my eye, but a decline underway, which, to my way of thinking is a positive thing. A shrinking rate of new HIV diagnoses in one of the country's hardest-hit cities calls for further discussion. Who knows, after we revive the dormant practice of town halls in the Castro about gay marriage equality, me might get around to a few public forums and the success of gay men controlling and preventing infections.