History

Early Government media campaigns were successful in raising public awareness about HIV. The measures taken by UK governments in the 1980s, including needle exchanges, condom education and harm reduction programmes, alongside strong efforts by the UK’s gay communities made sure that the UK had far lower rates of HIV than some of our European neighbours.

For people living with HIV in the UK, the development of effective anti-HIV drugs means they can stay healthier for longer, and the UK government has made public commitments to tackling HIV in developing countries.

However, since the mid-1990s public and political complacency has grown about the risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the UK. Partly because of this the number of new cases of HIV being diagnosed began to rise. Today, gay men continue to be most at risk from HIV, but the UK is also now very much a part of the global epidemic and people from areas like sub-Saharan Africa where HIV is very common are also badly affected.

There have been 7,095 new HIV diagnoses reported for 2006, an 83% increase in the number of infections reported in 2000 (3,884). This number is likely to rise due to late reporting and is expected to increase to approximately 7,800 diagnoses. This is similar to the estimated 2005 figure of 7,800 to 7,950.

Who is most affected?

The two groups most affected in the UK are men who have sex with men (MSM) and migrants from regions of the world where HIV is common, such as sub-Saharan Africa.

Approximately 2,700 men who have sex with men were diagnosed in 2006, the highest number since the epidemic began. Eight two percent of these men probably acquired HIV in the UK.

But the majority of people actually diagnosed with HIV in the UK in 2006 (61%) had been infected through heterosexual sex. Most of these infections were acquired abroad and many were in individuals of African origin.

Because of the ways that HIV can be transmitted, another group that faces significant risk of contracting HIV is injecting drug users who share equipment. It is also possible for the virus to be passed from mother to baby during pregnancy but improvements to antenatal HIV testing and treatments make this increasingly rare. In the past some people also got HIV through blood products but in the UK this is now extremely rare as well.

Geography

In 2006 43% of all people diagnosed with HIV in the UK lived in London, a 6% decrease in the number of people living with HIV in London in 2005.  However, between 2005 and 2006 London experienced a 3% increase in people accessing care.  Yorkshire and Humberside experienced the largest proportional increase in people accessing HIV care with 2,475 people seeking treatment, an increase of 18.5% from 2005.

In the last ten years, the biggest increases in people living with diagnosed HIV have been in the East of England and the East and West Midlands.