World

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

People gather near the White House in Washington, Tuesday, July 24, 2012, during an AIDS demonstration, Tuesday, July 24, 2012, as the AIDS conference continued in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Nearly half of high school students say they've had sex, yet progress has stalled in getting them to use condoms to protect against the AIDS virus, government researchers reported Tuesday.

Today, four of every 10 new HIV infections occur in people younger than 30, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the teen years, just as many youths become sexually active, are key for getting across the safe-sex message.

Using a long-standing survey of high school students' health, the CDC tracked how teen sexual behaviour has changed over 20 years. The results are decidedly mixed.

About 60 per cent of sexually active high school students say they used condoms the last time they had sex, researchers said at the International AIDS Conference. That's an increase from the 46 per cent who were using condoms in 1991.

"This is good news," said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC's HIV prevention centre. But, "we need to do a lot more."

Condom use reached a high of 63 per cent back in 2003.

Black students are most likely to heed the safe-sex message, yet their condom use dropped from a high of 70 per cent in 1999 to 65 per cent last year, the study found.