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Trends in HIV and AIDS statistics
An estimated 73,000 people were living with HIV in the UK at the end of 2006, of whom a third were unaware of their infection.
In 2006, there were at least 7,093 new diagnoses of HIV, contributing to a cumulative total of 88,627 reported by the end of June 2007.
There have been 23,147 diagnoses of AIDS in the UK. At least 17,597 people diagnosed with HIV have died, and at least 80% of these deaths followed an AIDS diagnosis.
When the tests for HIV antibodies became widely available in the mid 1980s, three main risk groups of HIV were identified. These were men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and people who have received treatment with blood products. Many of these people came forward for testing in the mid 1980s, after which there was a decline in the annual number of HIV diagnoses. This trend was reversed towards the end of the decade and there were between 2,500 and 2,800 diagnoses each year from 1990 to 1997.
Since 1999 there has been a steep increase in the number of HIV diagnoses. During 2006, reports show that at least 7,093 people were diagnosed with HIV in the UK. This number is expected to rise as further reports are received (there were 7,662 diagnoses in 2005). The major component of the rapid increase in recent years has been in heterosexually acquired infections. Although around 80% of these are contracted in countries with high HIV prevalence, infections acquired within the UK have also risen. Another significant factor in recent increases has been the introduction of clinician reporting, which was only introduced for HIV diagnoses made after the beginning of 2000.
The use of HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) has proved effective in delaying HIV associated deaths and the onset of AIDS. This resulted in a steep decline in the number of AIDS cases reported each year between 1994 and 1998. However, the number of cases has remained more or less constant since then, lying in the range 730-940. The number of deaths each year has hovered around 500 since 1998.
Risk groups
By 1985, when heat treatment of blood products to inactivate the virus was implemented, most haemophilia patients with HIV had had their infections diagnosed. Since then, three routes of infection - sex between men, heterosexual sex and injecting drug use - have been the main determinants of HIV infections in the UK.
Up until 1998, men who have sex with men formed the main exposure category for new HIV diagnoses. However, in 1999, heterosexually acquired HIV became the largest category, and has continued to be so ever since. The proportion of HIV infections acquired through injecting drug use has been much smaller in the UK than in many other European countries.
Men who have sex with men
Men who have sex with men remain the group at greatest risk of becoming infected with HIV in the UK. Throughout the 1990s, there were modest falls in the number of new HIV diagnoses among this group, except in 1996 when highly active antiretroviral therapy first became widely available and the advantages of early diagnosis became clearer. Since 1999, the figures have consistently risen again from fewer than 1,400 to more than 2,500 per year. It is likely that this trend is mainly due to an increase in HIV testing, though a rise in high risk sexual behaviour may also be a contributory factor.1
As of the end of June 2007, 39,593 men who have sex with men have been diagnosed with HIV in the UK, including those who have died. It has been estimated that, at the end of 2006, about 41% of all people living with HIV in the UK were men who had sex with men.
Heterosexuals
The number of heterosexually acquired HIV infections diagnosed in the UK has risen hugely over the last 15 years. In 1999, for the first time, the rate of heterosexually acquired HIV diagnoses overtook the rate of diagnoses in men who have sex with men. During 2006, there were 3,430 reports of heterosexually acquired HIV, and a total of 36,603 had been reported by the end of June 2007.
Most of the new diagnoses are in people who probably acquired HIV in other countries, particularly in Africa. However, the number of infections probably acquired from heterosexual sex within the UK has soared from 183 in 1998 to 549 in 2006.
Sources
References
- Dougan S. et al (April 2007) 'Does the recent increase in HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men in the UK reflect a rise in HIV incidence or increased uptake of HIV testing?', Sexually Transmitted Infections 83(2)
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