Sixteen people were diagnosed with HIV just last week while young people are spreading sexually transmitted diseases at an “alarming” rate, according to one expert.
New figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre revealed the 20 to 29 age group are at high risk of getting an infection.
Concern’s team leader for health and HIV Breda Gahan said: “I’m thinking of those 16 people who got that big blow of news last week and how it will affect them in terms of travelling, future job prospects, stigma and treatment.
“I would say unfortunately the stigma has increased both in Ireland and globally.
“On top of that, who are you going to tell? Are you going to tell your partner or your ex partners or family? No one wants to carry the burden alone.
“I don’t want to frighten people or say if you have sex you’re going to get HIV that’s not the case.
“But people don’t realise a lot of the cases of HIV are home grown.”
Despite having access to free treatment for AIDS in Ireland, Ms Gahan believes the Government needs to raise awareness.
She said: “HIV prevention is failing, it just hasn’t been invested in despite the increasing number of infections.
“The Government should get those who have the skills to travel to primary schools to work with those who are age appropriate.
“Education is the social vaccine. Girls and boys need to understand how to protect themselves from life-threatening infections.
“There is a serious lack of accurate information, there’s a lot of myths and misconceptions.
“We also need to make services more adolescent and user friendly. No one wants to go to an STI clinic.”
The latest figures from the HPSC report show so far this year there have been 239 reported HIV cases.
As well as this, 4,193 people have contracted chlamydia, 1,341 have gonorrhoea, and 793 have herpes.
Ireland has seen an increase of nearly 1,200 infections in comparison to last year.
Mrs Gahan said: “There’s an increase in STIs among young people because of complacency and people aren’t dying so there’s less fear. Young people don’t really care if they get an STI because it’s treatable.”
Mrs Gahan said we need to start educating children in primary school.
She added: “As a nurse, I would go as far to say that it’s too late to educate kids at secondary school level. Hormones are hopping at that age.
“We should be informing kids in primary school in an age appropriate way, I think around the age of 10 to 12 years.
“It’s alarming and concerning to see the increase of numbers. No sex can be totally safe – there’s always some risk, for example a condom breaking. But there needs to be education about safer sex.”
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