Although anyone may become infected with HIV, some UK communities have been affected more than others:
- HIV is most common amongst gay men in the UK. Up to one in five gay men in London and up to one in twenty outside London have HIV
- Men and women who inject drugs (and their sexual partners) have been affected because of HIV being passed through sharing drug injecting equipment. Of those who have tested for HIV, about one in forty have HIV. This figure may be nearer one in fifteen in London
- HIV has spread rapidly by sex between men and women in parts of Africa. Many of the men and women in the UK who were infected through sex with the opposite sex are people who have lived in or visited Africa.
People who have unsafe sex within these groups are at increased risk of meeting a partner who has HIV.
In addition, numbers of people (almost all men or boys) with haemophilia were infected with HIV through blood products used in haemophilia therapy. Sexual partners of some of the men infected in this way were also infected. Haemophilia treatments used in the UK are now safe from HIV.
Levels of HIV infection remain highest within these population groups. At the moment it is very uncommon in the UK amongst people who have had no sexual contact with them. However, HIV and safer sex is an issue for everyone, and increasingly so:
- there is a slow but real spread of HIV in the UK amongst women, and amongst men who have never had sex with men, including men and women with no links to the communities described above
- people in the UK have been infected by sexual partners who they never dreamt could have HIV
- HIV is more common in the general population of some parts of the world than it is in the UK. There are higher rates of infection in parts of the US, Africa and Asia, and in some European countries including Spain and Italy. So for both men and women, sex without a condom while travelling abroad could be a bigger risk than sex at home.
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