Web may hold key to fighting new HIV wave
The Sexpulse website, in development at the University of Minnesota, is the newest strategy to slow a second wave of the HIV/AIDS epidemic rising among young gay and bisexual men.
Infection rates in that population have increased 12 percent annually since 2001, according to federal officials.
To stop the epidemic, experts like the University's Simon Rosser (pictured) say they have to go to where those connections are being made — which is less and less often in gay bars and neighborhoods and increasingly online.
Rosser and others at the University are using a $3.5 million federal grant to create Sexpulse, a prototype for online HIV intervention specifically for gay men.
"If this is successful, it is huge," Rosser told the Star Tribune. "We can flick a switch and make it available to every gay man in the world."
More about Sexpulse from the Star Tribune
More about Rosser from reporter Josephine Marcotty's blog
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