A surge in the number of HIV diagnoses last year may indicate that the NZ AIDS Foundation has reached the limit of its ability to deal with the epidemic given its current resources. New Zealand will not know for another year if last year's HIV diagnosis surge is part of the overseas trend towards increasing HIV infection in gay men, according to NZAF executive director Kevin Hague. He says that even though the recently released 2002 figures "possibly, even probably" reflect the trends overseas, the numbers are still statistically low and "we'd want to look at the trend over the next two six-month reporting periods before we say this with confidence." There is a resource-based limit to what the Foundation can do to improve its ability to deal with HIV, according to Hague, and a proven upward trend in infections "would indicate this limit has been reached."