San Francisco - A significant number of gay men are becoming infected with the HIV virus through oral sex, an activity that was rumoured to be safe, researchers said yesterday. A study presented at a meeting of AIDS researchers found nearly 8 per cent of recently infected men in the San Francisco area were infected through oral sex.
Dr Beth Dillion, of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and colleagues at the University of California, surveyed 102 gay and bisexual men recently infected with HIV and found oral sex was the only risky behaviour that eight of the men had engaged in.