HIV resurges in men who have sex with men

A new analysis of HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men points to a troubling increase in new cases among young men, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

Public health experts use the term "men who have sex with men," or MSM, because many of these men are not strictly homosexual or even bisexual.

Between 2001 and 2006, male-to-male sex was the largest HIV transmission category in the U.S., and the only one associated with an increasing number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses, according to a report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The jump was highest — an increase of 12.4 percent — among boys and men between the ages of 13 and 24 years who had sex with other males, particularly among ethnic minorities.

"To reduce transmission of HIV among MSM of all races/ethnicities, prevention strategies should be strengthened, improved, and implemented more broadly," CDC health officials wrote in their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Testing is important, they add, because "after persons become aware that they are HIV positive, most reduce their high-risk sexual behavior."

The report describes trends in diagnoses of HIV/AIDS in 33 states that have confidential, name-based HIV case reporting.

Of 214,379 diagnoses during the study period, 46 percent were among MSM. The rate of new diagnoses declined in all other transmission categories — injection drug use, high-risk heterosexual contact, and other routes of transmission.