AIDS cases in Britain growing, 25 years on

LONDON, Nov 23 (Reuters) The number of people in Britain living with HIV has grown to an estimated 63,500, despite nearly a quarter century of safe-sex campaigns.

According to a report launched yesterday the increase from the 2004 figure of 58,300 was in part attributed to people living longer with the disease, but also because high risk groups, like homosexual men, fail to practise safe sex, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said.

''People should use a condom when they engage in sex with new or casual partners. It is not a complex message,'' said the head of the agency, professor Pat Trooper.

Speaking at the launch of the report ''A Complex Picture: HIV and Other Sexually Transmitted in the United Kingdom'', Trooper said there was a need to better target the behaviour of specific groups.

Among them were gay men, African-Caribbeans, black Africans and intravenous drug users.

Dr Valerie Delpech, an HIV expert at the agency, said the upward trend highlighted in the report was worrying, coming as it does 25 years after the first HIV case was diagnosed in Britain.

''We are seeing the highest infection rates for men who have sex with men ... there is still high risk behaviour in this group,'' she said at a news conference ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec 1.

Last year there were 7,450 new HIV cases recorded, including almost 2,400 new cases in gay men.

Also worrying health professionals was the growth in the number of heterosexuals who have been infected, particularly in the black African and African-Caribbean communities.

Where ethnicity was reported, the two latter groups accounted for two thirds of all new cases last year.

Although most of these cases were contracted abroad, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, there has been a rise in the number of people infected in Britain.

And while many gay men are diagnosed at the early stages of infection, thus dramatically increasing their survival chances, that was not the case among ethnic minorities.

The prevalence of diagnosed HIV infection was estimated to be 3.6 per cent among black Africans and 0.3 per cent among African-Caribbeans, which correlates to 46 and 3.7 times the estimated prevalence of diagnosed HIV in white heterosexuals -- 0.08 per cent.

The report, which also detailed a rise in other sexually transmitted infections, such as Gonorrhoea and Chlamydia, called for better screening -- so that infected people don't carry on infecting others -- and strategies to change behaviour in the high risk groups.

Reuters AKJ VV0943