Apathy and False Security Lead to Rise in German HIV Cases

The news is depressing. The number of new HIV infections around the world has been rising for five years. In the first half of 2005, there were 20 percent more cases than in the first half of 2004.

In Germany, there are now 45,000 people infected with HIV. Every year the number goes up by 2,000. In the last few years, the increase has gained in pace, as people start to believe they are less at risk.

According to Sven Christian Finke of the German AIDS Support organization, another reason is that people notice that there are advertising campaigns by pharmaceutical companies in which HIV is seen almost as something which gives meaning to life.

"That way the consequences of an infection are understated. That has an effect on the public and some of their target groups have changed their sense of the risk," Finke said.

It's true that AIDS can be much better treated than it was in the early days of the disease. That's one of the positives.

But on the negative side, says Elisabeth Pott, director of the Federal Centre for Health Information, people have stopped worrying.

Real nature of HIV must not be forgotten

"One mustn't forget: the fact that the disease is now treatable, or at it is now treated better, is certainly not the same as being able to cure it," Pott said. "What it actually means is living a life accompanied by the side effects of medicine, a life with limitations and with increasingly frequent periods of illness."

AIDS cannot be cured, and unprotected sex with unknown partners is dangerous. That's what the experts keep repeating. They train counselors for advice centers and send them out to places where gay people or drug users gather. They offer advice and information, increasingly on the Internet, since the medium is now integral as a way of making sexual contacts. And they demand that the pharmaceutical industry revert to advertising which shows HIV as the life-threatening disease it is.

Experts believe that Germans are generally well-informed about AIDS. But every generation of young people has to be educated again. It's an endless task.

Immigrants in Germany at risk

But one of the most worrying developments centers on the immigrant populations living in Germany. Ulrich Heide of the German AIDS Foundation says a lot of the education and information they supply simply misses this section of the population.

Heide points to a current study by the Health Ministry which shows that people from immigrant backgrounds living in Germany know much less about HIV and AIDS than Germans but there are some sectors of the immigrant population which arrive with basic information on the disease.

"Interestingly enough, people from sub-Saharan Africa are better informed that people from eastern and southern Europe," Heide said. "That's evidently because the Africans bring their knowledge with them from their homelands."

Spreading the word, not the virus

Once in Germany, migrants learn almost nothing more about AIDS because they are frightened of visiting the counseling centers.

German AIDS Support is trying to train counselors who speak the languages of the immigrant groups, so that they can deal with the subject in a way which is sensitive to their cultural needs, and, that way, make better contact with the people who are affected. In that way, one of the most "at risk" groups will get the information they need to protect themselves and others.