Irish naive to HIV facts, says EU survey

TWO in three Irish people think it is possible to be infected by HIV when kissing on the mouth while over one-third believe they can get the disease by drinking from a glass or sitting on a toilet seat used by a sufferer.

While an EU survey shows the Irish are among the most ignorant and least well informed about HIV/AIDS, they are still less likely to take precautions such as using condoms when having sex.

Ireland rated 20th among the 25 EU countries in the survey.

The study found the Irish were also among the least likely to have confined themselves to a stable partnership as a way of avoiding AIDS.

The attitude of Irish people towards those with the ailment has deteriorated since the previous survey three years ago.

For instance, only half of those quizzed say it’s important or effective to look after people infected with AIDS — a drop from over 60% in 2003.

They were equally sceptical of the effectiveness of information campaigns, treating HIV to delay the onset of AIDS, and of funding research to find an AIDS vaccine.

There has even been a decrease in the number who believed it would be beneficial to try harder to identify those with HIV or AIDS, with just 42% saying this would be a good thing.

The best informed Europeans tended to be the Swedes, Danes and the Dutch.

The countries that joined the EU two years ago tended to provide more wrong answers, but in many areas they were better informed than the Irish.

European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou regretted what he described as some die-hard misunderstandings about HIV/AIDS, such as being infected from kissing or looking after an infected patient.

“While most recognise the key role of safer sex ... less and less declare they take precautions when compared to the 2002 survey,” he said.

Ireland has among the lowest incidence of AIDS in the EU, at two per million compared to an EU average of 14 per million.

There have been 4,082 cases of HIV reported to the end of 2005 in the EU and a total of 862 AIDS cases, of which 398 people have died. Last year there were 318 new HIV incidents reported, a drop of 10% on the previous year.