Men Who Have Sex With Men and Localized HIV Epidemics

In the Western World, we pay a lot of attention to gay men and HIV. In the developing world, not so much. Efforts have rarely focused on men who have sex with men*, even though they are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection.

A new report from amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, identifies the gaps in HIV research, and provides recommendations for how to remedy them. I'll pull out the highlights:

• There a lot of barriers to engaging men who have sex with men, but the biggest one is denial. Governments, religious leaders, and even community groups often see homosexuality as shameful and don't want to admit its existence
• New epidemiological tools make it easier to track mini-epidemics like this one. Molecular epidemiology in particular can help to track transmission processes. (Stay tuned for a blog post in the near future where I do more reading on molecular epidemiology because it sounds really interesting)
• We need more information on biomedical interventions like male circumcision and rectal microbicides
• People may have greater priorities than avoiding HIV, and behavioral interventions need to take that into account (This one was really a revelation for me. It's obvious, and yet I had never thought of it.)
• We have very little data about male and transgender sex workers

For More Information

amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, has a whole Global Consulation on MSM research page.

*jargon alert - Men Who Have Sex With Men, or MSMs, is public health jargon we use instead of saying "gay." It's a useful piece of jargon, because plenty of men do not identify as gay, yet still have sex with other men and therefore need to be taken into account.