Positive Women and Heterosexuality: Problems of Disclosure of Serostatus to Sexual Partners

In Australia, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been and continues to be one which affects mainly homosexually active men, and one which is concentrated among those who are attached to the central gay communities of Sydney and Melbourne. Since the beginning of the epidemic, 926 women have been diagnosed as HIV antibody positive, and this represents 5 per cent of all HIV positive diagnoses (National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, 1995).