HIV cases jump 50pc in a decade

Over the past decade the number of Australians being diagnosed with HIV has jumped by 50 per cent, while rates of chlamydia and syphilis have doubled.

At first only gays and IV drug users were being killed by AIDS, but the public now knows every person could be devastated by it.

Since the Grim Reaper ad campaign aired more than 20 years ago, Australia has had some of the lowest HIV transmission rates in the world.

Anti-retroviral drug treatments have successfully transformed the disease into a chronic manageable condition rather than an automatic death sentence.

But in the past decade HIV transmissions in Australia have spiked.

The Federal Government has launched new strategies to tackle the growing rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Among other things, they will focus on groups at increasing risk, such as Indigenous drug users and people who have sex on overseas holidays.

Parliamentary Secretary for Health Mark Butler says infection rates have stabilised in the past two years but there is a danger of emerging epidemics among several new high-risk groups.

"Men who have sex with men is still the biggest group in the population who contract HIV, but there are other populations now that we're seeing emerging, which we need to target with prevention messages," he said.

"For example, people travelling to and from high-prevalence countries in Africa and Asia, we need to get messages very clearly across to them as they are leaving the country to practice safe sex if they're having sex over there."

The other main community identified in that group is Indigenous people who inject drugs.

The rates of other sexually transmitted infections have also soared.

Chlamydia and syphilis cases have nearly doubled since 2004 and there is evidence people are more susceptible to HIV if they have another STI.

Professor Michael Kidd, who chaired a ministerial advisory group on sexual disease strategies, says safe sex messages have not been getting out to many young Australians.