Gemini attends WA AIDS Council Workshop

Speakers included

• Trish Langdon
  WAAIDS Council Executive Officer 
• Dr. Graham Brown
  President of Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, Co Director (Western Australian Centre for Health Promotion Research)
• Dr. Lewis Marshall
  Head of Infectious Diseases, Fremantle Hospital

Gemini Medical believes it is important for organisations who send employees overseas to be proactive with regards to this emerging issue in the following ways

• Promote safe sex to all employees when travelling overseas. Do your employees know that in many parts of the world HIV/AIDS is a heterosexual disease?
• Call the WAAIDS Council about information you can give to employees or visit http://www.sexinothercities.com.au/
• Request that sexual health checks are conducted as part of your companies travel consultations and medicals pre and post travel.
• Gemini offers post travel counselling and testing for all patients (this is provided confidentially if requested)

For more information please contact

Sandy McNab
Corporate Services Manager
info@geminimedical.com.au
(08) 9430 7000

Do you send your employees abroad?

HIV and other STI transmission are on the increase among Australians going overseas. These increases are of concern to the WA AIDS Council and the Department of Health. As a response to the increased notifications the WA AIDS Council has been commissioned by the Department of Health to develop a range of strategies to target those individuals at risk and to advocate for policies and reform that will reduce the risk of transmission to Australians

Australians love to travel overseas. Air travel is commonplace, cruises are back in vogue and it is rite of passage for many young people to backpack to exotic locations. Business is increasingly being conducted on a global scale and Australians often travel overseas for work, meetings and conferences.

Many Australians don’t realise that sex in other cities is a risky business where they are likely to be exposed to a number of sexually transmissible infections (STIs) and blood borne viruses (BBVs). HIV, gonorrhoea, syphilis, Chlamydia and hepatitis B and C are more common overseas than in Australia, especially in Africa and South-East Asia. Some of the STIs acquired during overseas travel are also more likely to be resistant to standard treatments.

People may also have sex with a sex worker overseas, without necessarily exchanging money. In many parts of Asia and Africa, HIV and STI prevalence rates are extremely high amongst sex workers. Whereas the Australian sex industry is extremely safe with almost universal condom use, sex workers overseas do not routinely use condoms. This is because the possession of condoms may be illegal, they cannot afford them or they get paid more for having sex without condoms.