UK Cases of HIV Hit Record High

November 26, 2002
Sarah Boseley, health editor

As HIV infection rises in the UK a survey has revealed a widespread and dangerously misplaced complacency among young people, a third of whom believe there is a cure for Aids.

Figures for HIV infection in England and Wales due out this week are likely to be alarming. The Terrence Higgins Trust, the largest Aids organisation in the UK, estimates there are more than 34,000 people living here with HIV, although up to a third do not know they are infected or could pass the virus to other people because they have not been tested.

Up to June this year, more than 51,000 cases of HIV had been diagnosed in the UK and there were 18,759 cases in which the infection had progressed to full-blown Aids, according to the Public Health Laboratory Service.

Nearly 15,000 people are known to have died of Aids in this country, but because new drug combinations are able to keep people with HIV alive and healthy - although 375 still died last year - the dangers of infection have ceased to seem so alarming.

As a result, ignorance and complacency have grown and the HIV infection rate has increased. Last year 4,419 people were diagnosed with the virus, an increase of 17% on 2000.

HIV/Aids is no longer predominantly an infection of gay men or intravenous drug users in the UK; in 2000, 54% of new infections were between heterosexual couples.

A survey by the Terrence Higgins Trust suggests that a third of 18- to 24-year-olds think there is a cure for HIV/Aids, although there is not.

"Record numbers of people are being diagnosed with HIV, and there are now more people living with the virus in the UK than ever before," said Nick Partridge, chief executive of the trust.

The survey is being published before World Aids Day on December 1, which will focus on the 40 million people living with HIV worldwide.

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