Key findings
- By 31 December 2004, 9,618 AIDS cases and 6,590 deaths following AIDS, adjusted for reporting delay, had been notified in Australia. A total of 21,400 cases of HIV infection, adjusted for multiple reporting, had been diagnosed in Australia by the end of 2004. An estimated 14,840 people were living with HIV/AIDS in Australia in 2004, including around 1,100 adult/adolescent women.
- The per capita rate of new diagnoses of hepatitis C infection has declined from 107.2 (20,188 cases) in 2000 to 66.0 per 100,000 population (13,028 cases) in 2004. The reported number of diagnoses of newly acquired hepatitis C infection fell from 538 cases in 2000 to 361 cases in 2004.
- Chlamydia was the most frequently reported notifiable condition in Australia in 2004 with 35,189 diagnoses. The population rate of diagnosis of chlamydia more than doubled over the past five years, from 91.4 (16,953 cases) in 2000 to 186.1 per 100,000 in 2004.
- The population rate of diagnosis of gonorrhoea increased from 31.4 (5,897 cases) in 2000 to 37.0 per 100,000 population (7,098 cases) in 2004.
- The population rate of diagnosis of syphilis in Australia was less than 10 per 100,000 in 2000 – 2004. In New South Wales, the population rate of syphilis diagnoses almost doubled and increased nine fold in Victoria in 2000 – 2004. The increased rates of syphilis in New South Wales and Victoria were almost completely confined to homosexual men.