UK HIV cases among top in Europe

Saturday, November 24, 2007

A report has shown that the rate of new cases of HIV/Aids in the UK is one of the highest in the European Union. There were 8,925 newly diagnosed cases last year, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said. At almost 149 cases per million inhabitants, the UK has the third highest rate of new infections behind Estonia and Portugal. The figures come as the Health Protection Agency estimated 73,000 adults in the UK now have HIV. The EU average is of new HIV infections is 67 cases per million.

In raw figures the number of newly diagnosed cases reported in the UK last year is by far the highest at 8,925 followed by 5,750 in France and 2,718 in Germany. But as a proportion of population, Estonia comes out top. The lowest rate in the latest survey is in Slovakia, where 27 new HIV/AIDs cases were reported last year.

ECDC spokesperson, Ben Duncan, said "In Western European countries like the UK and France one of the main drivers of new cases was people migrating from areas of the world with HIV epidemics. Another big driver has been the increase in cases among men who have sex with men. Clearly, our prevention efforts are not having the desired effect - the safe sex message doesn't seem to be having the impact we would hope."

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