The number of people newly diagnosed with HIV in the UK who contracted the virus through heterosexual sex has started to fall in recent years since the peak year of 2005.
However, this fall is mostly due to fewer diagnoses among people infected heterosexually abroad and heterosexual infections acquired in the UK continue to increase. Since 1999 heterosexual sex has overtaken homosexual sex as the most common route of transmission among new HIV cases overall.However in 2011 new diagnoses acquired through sex between men overtook heterosexual transmissions again.
In 2011, heterosexual transmission accounted for 48 per cent of those newly diagnosed in the UK. It is now thought that the majority of people diagnosed in 2011 through heterosexual sex were actually exposed to the virus in the UK (52 per cent). UK acquired infections in heterosexuals rose from 320 in 2001 to 1,560 in 2011, a more than fourfold increase.
Statistics
In 2011, 52 per cent of all new heterosexual HIV diagnoses were probably acquired in the UK, a significant increase from 24 per cent in 2007.
Those infected with HIV through heterosexual sex account for:
- 48 per cent of new HIV cases in 2011, 2,990 infections in total
- 49 per cent of the total number of people needing HIV care, making a total of 36,355 people.
Among those diagnosed with heterosexually acquired HIV:
- 57 per cent are of Black African ethnicity
- 63 per cent are female most probably because many women with HIV are diagnosed by routine testing during pregnancy
- in 2011, 56 per cent of heterosexual women and 64 per cent of heterosexual men were diagnosed late, after they should have started on medication.
An estimated 51,500 heterosexuals were living with HIV in the UK in 2011, including more than one in four (27 per cent) undiagnosed. White heterosexuals make up about 11 per cent of those in care.