The infectious disease doctor on HIV: "the scaremongering from the 90s is still alive"

Yesterday, Thursday 1 December, was international World AIDS Day.

In connection with that, the Public Health Agency published a new survey in which they asked Swedes about their knowledge and attitudes towards HIV.

The results show that only four out of ten Swedes know that a well-treated HIV-infected person is not transmitted through unprotected sex.

And only 16 percent of respondents knew that the HIV-infected person does not need to inform a sex partner that they have HIV.

The statistics are based on a survey with nearly 5,000 respondents.

- It fits well with the experiences we have here in Västra Götaland, says Peter Nolskog, assistant infectious disease doctor in the Västra Götaland region.

More heterosexuals have HIV

According to Peter Nolskog, a false image of HIV lives on in two different ways.

On the one hand, people do not have knowledge that HIV is no longer contagious, but there is also low awareness of who has HIV.

- Many people think that this is something that affects homosexual men above all, but in Sweden it is the case that a majority of those who have HIV today are heterosexually infected.