One British researcher said yesterday that the return of the bathhouse culture among gay and bisexual men, involving sex with multiple partners, could provide the scenario in which a preventive pill might be taken.

Sheena McCormack, a specialist in HIV prevention and reader in clinical epidemiology at Imperial College London, said: “The party scene involving multiple sexual partners is definitely back in London and probably in most European cities. There is metrosexual mixing involving gay, bisexual and some heterosexual cases. We estimate new HIV infections in gay men in London are running at 3 per cent a year”.

Her clinic already offers “post-exposure prophylaxis” to people who have had unprotected sex with someone in a high-risk group, involving a month-long course of treatment with three drugs. But a preventive drug would provide an extra option. “People could pop a pill on a Friday night and be covered for the whole weekend,” she said.

Thats not to say we should not be doing more to prevent and treat both Malaria and TB - but thats the thing, there ARE good therapies for both that with enough money and access treatment is essentially over and done with and the patient cured. HIV treatment is a lifetime of constant medication and monitoring for the patient which - to me - makes it an apples and oranges comparison.

The same is not true for HIV. HIV - when not diagnosed early - can be a bitch to diagnose without good testing facilities. The same is true of other infections that attack the immune system and those diseases also probably deserve closer scrutiny and as much research funding as possible.

There are now - on site - HIV tests coming online and that will be a big help, but until we can treat people to the point where they can walk away from a life of pharmaceutical therapy we won’t be able to ethically treat HIV the way we treat other diseases where that is an option.