Cup Match could be a death sentence for revellers unless they take the risk of Aids seriously, says counsellor Carolyn Armstrong.

With annual rates of HIV infection nearly tripling since 2002 she said Bermudians had no reason to be complacent.

She told The Royal Gazette: "Often after a holiday we will get calls from people who have put themselves at risk under the influence of alcohol or the party environment.

"That trend stays the same promiscuity in the holidays. People do all kinds of things they wouldn't normally do."

Last year 22 new cases of HIV infection were reported making it the worst year since 1996.

And if everyone was tested in Bermuda Ms Armstrong believes the HIV rate, already topping 300, would double.

"It's indicated from who our clients list as sexual contacts the names don't show up in our system."

And Ms Armstrong, who is director of the charity Supportive Therapy for Aids Persons and their Relatives (STAR), warned that some HIV sufferers were not informing their sex partners they were at risk.

She said: "People have not changed their behaviour so new HIV is being contracted.

"It's becoming pretty common now that people who are HIV-infected are not informing their partner of their status."

But she said not all the responsibility lay with the HIV-infected partner every adult still bore a duty to make sure they were not exposing themselves to danger "especially with all the information and education that's gone out."

Ms Armstrong warns clients to tell their partner about their sickness not to do so could risk not only infecting them but also a likely prosecution.

In June 2008 Gary Delton Williams, an HIV positive man who repeatedly had unprotected sex with a woman without telling her he had the disease, was jailed for 10 years.

In the early days of Aids, sufferers were dying within three to six weeks of checking into hospital. Most of those were heavy drug users.

Now nine in ten new infections are from sexual contact and sufferers live much longer thanks to better drugs.

Ms Armstrong reckons most infections in Bermuda are of people between aged between 25 and 40 catching the disease on the Island.

Most come for HIV tests expecting the worst after knowing they put themselves at risk.

Others come because they have symptoms they just can't shake diahorrea, night sweats, loss of weight, pneumonia or having a cough they just can't shake off.

"They have read enough information, they know they need to look at why it's happening. The thought had crossed their mind when they were dating 'so and so', maybe they need to address it."

She said the HIV/Aids problem would soon affect everyone on the Island with people losing friends and relatives to the disease, unless people got real and practiced safe sex.

And ironically the success of Bermuda's health professionals in managaing the disease also reduced its profile, leading to complancey and new infections.

"There's certainly been an increase in infections, within the past six weeks we have had six referrals to our organisation.

"I think complacency plays a very large role in why people are still contracting HIVs."

She said the lack of obvious Aids sufferers, looking weak and drawn, walking about in the community also helped push it to the back of people's minds. The obviously sick ones were in hospital or being treated overseas.

"One of the reasons the community doesn't think HIV is a problem is because it is pretty much handled very well.

"There are people who think that it's been cured. But there is no cure for Aids."

She said sufferers whose disease was temporarily undetectable were tempted to back off the necessary medicine and open themselves up to relapses.

"They think its curable, that it has gone away. They say I feel good, I look good, but it's false hope."

Ms Armstrong, has been working for STAR since in opened in 1986. Since 1993 it has had a residential component, the Light House.

The continous need for the charity is testimony to how one bad decision just the one time has massive repercussions which ripple on for decades as parents with Aids die and leave orphans.

"Some of the children come to live with their moms until their moms can no longer live in Light House.

"For those who have lost both parents we continue with them until they have become established in the community."

STAR also supports foster parents, grand parents and other members of the family coping with Aids orphans.

"We do follow up with the orphans, remain in their lives until they are adult, sometimes we continue.

"We assist grandparents in providing supplies for the children, clothing food, and school items."