Does taking a gay test
Genetic studies have shown that HCV strains from MSM closely follow sexual networks within and even across cities. And in 2009, Lynn Taylor reported that 75% of new HCV infections among HIV-positive gay and bisexual men in several AIDS Clinical Trials Group studies were likely due to sexual transmission. Disturbingly, some of them had unusually rapid liver fibrosis. The next year, Fierer first reported on a group of HIV-positive gay men in New York with new HCV infections despite no traditional, non-sexual, risk factors. In 2006 Annie Luetkemeyer reported nine cases of new HCV among men with HIV seen at San Francisco General Hospital, with a majority reporting only sexual risk factors. Similar reports emerged a bit later in the U.S. The number then appeared to level off, which the researchers said could be due to greater awareness and prevention, or just that the pool of susceptible men was "saturated". The proportion of these men testing positive for HCV antibodies rose from 6% in 1995 to a peak of 21% in 2008, with nearly one third having a new infection. Investigators from Amsterdam's public health service have traced HCV prevalence, or total cases, among HIV-positive gay men over two decades. New HCV infections in gay men with HIV began to climb steeply around 2005. In Amsterdam, the proportion of MSM with HIV testing positive for HCV rose from 6% in 1995 to a peak of 21% in 2008, with nearly one-third having a new infection. HCV and HIV New HCV infections in gay men with HIV began to climb steeply around 2005. Other studies have shown that both heterosexual and gay people with multiple sex partners, HCV-positive partners, or partners who inject drugs have a higher chance of getting hepatitis C. This advice was based on studies showing that transmission is rare in monogamous heterosexual couples, ranging from 0% to about 3%.īut these findings don't hold for other groups. Public health messages have said that the risk of sexual transmission is very low and that people with HCV do not need to change their sexual practices. The CDC lists sex as an "inefficient means" of HCV transmission.
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HCV is a blood-borne virus that had been most often transmitted by sharing needles or by blood transfusions (before blood was tested for the virus). "Among gay men, I think the vast majority who acquired HCV in the past decade have gotten it from sex," says Daniel Fierer from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.