A conference in Perth, Australia, has heard that six men in Cairns have contracted HIV after travelling to Papua New Guinea and the news has alarmed health authorities and raised concern that there may be more undetected cases in the area.
According to Dr. Darren Russell from the Cairns Sexual Health Service in far north Queensland, the six men, aged between 47 and 66 years old, tested positive to HIV after having unprotected sex with women in PNG in the past 10 months.
All had apparently visited PNG on business trips and experts say it is a worrying new trend and has been detected among miners and other workers based in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Some experts are concerned it could provide the virus with an entry into the mainstream population and say it is a wake-up call for Australia.
Professor Russell says also of concern is the border region in the Torres Strait, which is very close to Papua New Guinea and says there is concern that it is only a matter of time before cases show up there.
Gary Dowsett, deputy director of the Australia Research Centre in Sex Health and Society at Latrobe University says people need to think about their behaviour when they are travelling overseas because HIV is an epidemic.
He says the message must continue to be reinforced, that people who are sexually active when they are travelling overseas, need to be careful and safe in their sexual practices - he says this is not a new phenomenon.
Professor Russell has voiced the concern that unless men get tested, they could be undiagnosed for a long time, and pass the infection on to women across Australia.
Apparently three of the six Queensland men had regular female partners in Australia, but all the partners had tested negative for HIV.