So-called "POZ Parties" began in New York in the 1990s as informal gatherings for HIV positive gay men. Since then, the idea has spread to canada, Australia and Western Europe.
Dr Michael Clatts and his colleagues at the National Development and Research Institute in New York, who questioned 115 men from 10 POZ parties in 2003, fear the events could lead to the spread of drug resistant strains of the virus.
"Unprotected sexual contact with HIV partners and status unknown partners outside the POZ Party venues heightens concern for diffusion of HIV superinfection," clatts said in a report in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Drug-resistance, when treatment no longer works, has become a problem in wealthy countries where antiretroviral drugs have been available for several years. Viruses mutate or change and can become resistant to one or more antiretroviral therapies.
Websites and mailing lists say where and when the parties occur. In some cities they are held several times each month.
Men questioned in the pilot study said they attended the events beca+use it eliminated the need to reveal their HIV status. Others admitted they were prompted by the desire to have unprotected sex.
"Status disclosure is something that positive men find difficult, particularly early on in the course of HIV infection. POZ parties by definition take some of that burden off," Clatts, a behavioural epidemiologist, explained in an interview.
The scientists said the high rates of unprotected sex at the venues and having multiple partners also increased the risk of other sexually transmitted infections in men whose immune systems were already compromised.
"Public health needs to get access to these environments so we can bring better education to these populations," Clatts added.
About 70 percent of the POZ Party attendees were white men, according to the study. They had been HIV positive for as little as two months or as long as 20 years. The vast majority, 97 percent, only had sex with other men. Condoms were almost never used at the parties.
Two-thirds of the men who were questioned were taking antiretroviral treatments.
"Additional research is needed in order to elaborate our understanding of the nature of these emerging sexual environments, and the role that they have in sexual partnering of HIV positive men having sex with men," Clatts
added.
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