Researchers have found that Australia's mining boom is contributing to a significant rise in HIV infections among affluent heterosexual miners and businessmen who travel to Asia for holidays. According to a recent national report on HIV-AIDS, rates of HIV infections in Australia have gone up by nearly 50 percent in the last eight years. The report, released by the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, stated that in 2007 alone, Australia had 27,331 cases of HIV infection and 10,230 cases of AIDS. While the majority of new infections are still among homosexual men, there is a growing number of infections among heterosexual men in the mining-rich states of Western Australia and Queensland. Many miners work fly-in, fly-out shifts where they work for several weeks straight followed by a few weeks off. Some miners are using their time off to visit Asia, according to researchers. Don Baxter, executive director of the Australian Federation of AIDS, stated that a notable number of new infections are among heterosexual men from wealthy resource states who are vacationing in Asia and engaging in unprotected sex. Baxter noted that men from Western Australia are likely to visit Southeast Asian countries, while those from Queensland visit Papua New Guinea, which is at risk of an HIV-AIDS epidemic. Baxter also mentioned that there has been a 68 percent increase in HIV infections among heterosexual males in Western Australia over the past three years, with the number of infected heterosexual men similar to that of gay men in the region in 2007. Baxter announced that the government of Western Australia and the AIDS council were collaborating with mining companies to introduce safe sex education programs for miners. Health officials reported on Wednesday that a group of men in Cairns, Queensland, had contracted HIV after having unprotected sex with women in Papua New Guinea. Six businessmen, aged 47 to 66, tested positive for HIV in the past 10 months. Dr. Darren Russell, director of the Cairns Sexual Health Service, warned that this small cluster could be the start of a larger outbreak due to the increasing HIV epidemic in Papua New Guinea. Australia's AIDS federation has urged the government to boost funding for AIDS prevention programs in order to curb the increasing number of infections. According to Baxter, New South Wales, which has a large homosexual population in Sydney, has seen minimal changes in infection rates over the past ten years due to continued funding for safe sex programs. In contrast, states that have cut funding have witnessed significant spikes in infection rates, such as Victoria with a 131 percent increase and Queensland with a 55 percent rise. Baxter emphasized the importance of investing in these programs as a way to at least stabilize HIV infection rates.