ABSTRACT
Australia has experienced 2381 cases of AIDS as at 31 December 1990, 60 per cent of whom have died (National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, 1991). Males account for 97 per cent of cases. The incidence of AIDS is still increasing in Australia, but at a slower rate than in earlier years of the epidemic. Along with New Zealand, the pattern of the Australian epidemic is different from the rest of the Western Pacific, in that the proportion of AIDS cases related to sexual transmission of the virus between men is high, 87 per cent, and has remained so since 1986.
