Number of HIV Infections Jumps

The number of new HIV infections was 20 percent higher in the first six months of this year than it was in the same period in 2004. According to the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, 1,164 people were infected in the first half of 2005 with the virus. Almost 60 percent of the new infections were among homosexual men and the risk of infection among this group is higher than it has been in 12 years. The president of the Robert Koch Institute, Reinhard Kurth, said the news was worrying and that more attempts needed to be made to communicate to the populace that AIDS, despite improved therapies, is still an incurable disease. The new "drug cocktails," that have proven effective in treating the symptoms of AIDS, have led to many taking the consequences of infection less seriously, said the Federal Center for Health Education.