Document 0355
 DOCN  M9590355
 TI    The relationship of HIV and other STDs in Australia: setting priorities
       for control strategies.
 DT    9509
 AU    Bowden FJ; Northern Territory AIDS/STD Programs, NT Department of Health
       and; Community Services, Casuarina.
 SO    Annu Conf Australas Soc HIV Med. 1994 Nov 3-6;6:139 (unnumbered
       abstract). Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE ASHM6/95291744
 AB    There is now reasonably good evidence for the existence of a
       relationship between the presence of a pre-existing STD and an increase
       in the risk of transmission or acquisition of HIV during sexual
       intercourse. This relationship (sometimes referred to as epidemiological
       synergy) is likely to be an important feature of the epidemic of HIV in
       Aboriginal people in remote areas of Australia. In the Northern
       Territory, for example, the rates of many STDs in some remote Aboriginal
       populations are up to 40 times the Australian average. Although
       non-ulcerative conditions (gonorrhoea and chlamydia) are also considered
       to increase the risk of HIV transmission, it is the ulcerative genital
       conditions (syphilis, herpes simplex and donovanosis) which are likely
       to be of greatest significance. Donovanosis, a bacterial STD causing
       progressive genital ulceration, is common in the NT and other parts of
       Northern Australia. Syphilis has been endemic in the NT since the 70s
       and now appears to be resurging in other parts of rural Australia. The
       seroprevalence of specific syphilis serology may be a predictor of
       future HIV prevalence. The rate of progression and the extent of the HIV
       epidemic in Aboriginal Australians will be determined, in part, by the
       success of the control of the other STDs. Education and prevention
       strategies directed at diseases that people have experience of is likely
       to be more effective than those directed at a disease (HIV) that still
       has the tag of a whitefella sickness.
 DE    Aborigines/*STATISTICS & NUMER DATA  Australia/EPIDEMIOLOGY
       Cross-Sectional Studies  Health Priorities/*TRENDS  Human  HIV
       Infections/EPIDEMIOLOGY/*PREVENTION & CONTROL  Incidence  Northern
       Territory/EPIDEMIOLOGY  Sexually Transmitted
       Diseases/EPIDEMIOLOGY/*PREVENTION & CONTROL  MEETING ABSTRACT

       SOURCE: National Library of Medicine.  NOTICE: This material may be
       protected by Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.Code).