Authorities warn of AIDS surge in Aussie travellers

Gay Australian tourists travelling to Asian cities are being given a particularly strong warning. (AFP: Alfredo Estrella)

Health authorities are being urged to step up safe sex education campaigns in an attempt to limit the number of Australian travellers who return home with HIV.

In the past 10 months six Cairns men, who had been working in Papua New Guinea, have been diagnosed with HIV after having unprotected sex with women there.

The Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations says travellers should be made aware of an explosion in the number of HIV infections recorded across Asia in recent years.

Statistics show that even people who are determined to stick to a safe sex regime at home, are not always as careful when they are away.

"It's been known for thousands of years that absence makes the heart go wander," said Cairns Base Hospital director of sexual health Dr Darren Russell.

"As people travel they're out of their normal environment, they're away from family and friends and the normal cues that might keep them on the straight and narrow at home.

"It's often a humid, warm, pleasant environment; it's a bit exotic, there's alcohol involved; you're meeting new people, and one thing leads to another.

"And, you know, there's nothing new about the idea of holiday romances, and so on. This is just another example of that."

In the past 10 months, Dr Russell has helped care for six Cairns men who have been diagnosed with HIV after having unprotected sex with women while on business trips to Papua New Guinea.

Three of the men have wives or girlfriends in Australia; fortunately none has been infected.

"The concern we have is that we've diagnosed six men; we don't know how many men we haven't diagnosed," he said.

"So there could be other guys who've put themselves at risk with unprotected sex up in PNG or elsewhere abroad, and are having sex with people in Cairns area and could be passing it on, and we'd have no idea."

Papua New Guinea is one country in the region where HIV is raging virtually unchecked.