Hepatitis A in men having sex with men (MSMs) in northern Italy

Alessandro Pini1, Lina Rachele Tomasoni, Graziella Cristini

  • 1Institute for Infectious and Tropical Diseases, University of Brescia, Italy.

During 2009 there was an increased incidence of acute hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection among homosexual males which, in our institute, outnumbered the number of cases in travellers, thus becoming the prime HAV risk factor. Some of our HAV cases occurred in HIV-infected subjects. This observation underlines the action of HAV as a sexually transmitted infection and urges preventive measures, such as routine HAV vaccination in the HIV-infected population.

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