UK Aids cases 'on the rise'
HIV's effect on brain
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Wednesday, 22, Nov 2006 02:58
Aids and HIV cases are increasing in the UK, latest statistics have revealed.
In its A Complex Picture report, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) estimates that there are 63,500 adults living with HIV in the UK, with a third of this number (20,100) unaware that they have the disease.
In 2004 this figure was 58,300, with an estimated 19,700 living unknowingly with the disease.
Gay men and black and ethnic minority populations have continued to be increasingly affected by the disease.
Almost 2,400 of cases diagnosed in the last year were in gay men; three in every hundred gay men who attended an STI (sexually transmitted infection) clinic last year acquired their infection during 2005.
Black and ethnic minority people accounted for two thirds of all new cases where ethnicity was reported in 2005 (3691 out of 5902).
The number of reports of HIV-infected black Africans who contracted their infection in the UK increased from 43 in 2000 to 182 in 2005.
Explaining the rise in cases, Dr Valerie Delpech, an HIV expert at the HPA, said: "This is due to people living longer with HIV due to advances in treatment, sustained levels of newly acquired infections in gay men, further diagnoses among heterosexuals who acquired their infection in Africa, and cases being picked up earlier."
She added that the HPA is concerned with the late diagnosis of HIV and said that greater support is needed for primary care practitioners to be able to assess the health needs of gay men and migrants, including discussing the need for HIV testing to ensure these groups are diagnosed as early as possible.
Responding to the report, Nick Partridge, chief executive of sexual health charity the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "We can prevent new infections by hammering home those safer sex messages to people most at risk of HIV. The message is clear: use a condom, and get tested if you think you've been at risk of infection.
"Diagnosing the third of people with HIV who don't know they have it is vital to prevent onward transmission and untimely deaths. To bring these numbers down, we must make it easier and faster to get tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections."
The HPA's report is issued before World Aids Day next month and follows the recently-launched campaign by the Department of Health to encourage young adults to use condoms.