After years of stability, H-I-V infection rate in San Francisco rises

(San Francisco-AP) -- AIDS experts say the safe-sex message may no longer be getting through to the public.<br><br>They say the rate of new H-I-V infections among gay and bisexual men in San Francisco

Friday, June 30th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(San Francisco-AP) -- AIDS experts say the safe-sex message may no longer be getting through to the public.

They say the rate of new H-I-V infections among gay and bisexual men in San Francisco nearly tripled over the past two years.

Health experts say powerful new AIDS drugs are making people complacent and that the San Francisco numbers should be a wake-up
call to the rest of the nation.

Powerful AIDS drug cocktails that can knock the virus down to almost undetectable levels and make AIDS a manageable disease went
into wide use in the mid-1990's.

San Francisco has generally been ground-zero for trends in the AIDS epidemic -- so experts fear they may start seeing the same
phenomenon among gay and bisexual men around the country.