The government’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) is predicting record
numbers of new HIV infections in 2004, officials told a parliamentary committee
last month.
Dr Katy Sinka, a principal scientist with the HPA, told peers and MPs at the
All Party Parliamentary Group on Aids that they were expecting over 7,000 new
cases of HIV in the UK in 2004. The number of people living with HIV in Britain
is expected to grow close to 60,000 this year, the HPA also predicts.
Britain is still getting between 700 and 800 new Aids cases each year, Dr Sinka said, because many people were being diagnosed at an advanced stage of infection.
Of the new HIV cases, over 2,000 are expected to be among men who have sex with men but over 80 per cent of the cases are among heterosexuals who acquired the virus abroad, mainly in Africa.
Forty-five per cent of the new UK cases in 2002 were among people recently arrived from Zimbabwe, Dr Sinka added.
Anonymous testing of pregnant women showed as many as one in 200 in inner London had the virus but 70 per cent of mums were diagnosed in pregnancy. Only one in 20 of the HIV positive pregnant women gave birth to children with the disease because of drugs to prevent transmission and elective Caesarean section.
Dr Kevin Fenton said the HPA was particularly concerned about increasing rates of syphilis and chlamydia and the disproportionate number of new cases of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) in young people.
There were 1.6 million visits to GUM clinics in England in 2002 and a further 800,000 in Scotland and 600,000 in Wales.
Young people, men who have sex with men and black and ethnic minority communities are the ones particularly affected by the new infections, he said, and they must be the priority for prevention and education campaigns.
But with average UK waiting times of two weeks for appointments at GUM clinics, and as much as four to six weeks in some areas, many people with STIs remain undetected and untreated (also see last month’s article The Mystery Shoppers, PN 99).
The sexual health crisis is further compounded by the fact that many GUM ‘walk-in’ clinics in this country “simply can’t cope”, Dr Fenton said. And many GUM clinic doors are locked closed for the day by 10am each day, one MP reported.
With the British government said to be considering compulsory testing of immigrants for HIV and TB, senior doctors have argued that it would be both impractical and unethical.
Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Dr Richard Coker, a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, highlighted recent anti-immigrant sentiments in the media and said there was no evidence that compulsory screening of immigrants would work.
“ Although the increase in rates of tuberculosis in England and Wales over the past decade is clearly associated with immigrants,” Dr Coker said, “This does not translate into a cogent argument in favour of screening immigrants, never mind compulsory testing.”
But, while acknowledging that much of new HIV infections in this country are acquired abroad, Dr Coker argues that most asylum seekers are HIV negative, and the majority of immigrants who are HIV positive are not asylum seekers.
Compulsory screening would increase the amount of illegal immigration and could create a bigger public health risk than the one it was expected to deal with, he said.
“ The UK has an enviable reputation in international public health and it would be a shame if this reputation was tarnished through an ill-considered conflation of immigration control and communicable disease control.”
Meanwhile, latest statistics from the Organisation for European Co-operation and Development show that Britain received almost one in five asylum seekers in the western world in 2002.
With more than 110,000 asylum applications, the UK topped the list of EU countries and was even 30 per cent higher than the USA, the report stated.
The US recorded 81,000 asylum applications, followed by Germany with 71,000 and France with 51,000.
Hope and Homes
|
African Access Project launched in South LondonThree South London HIV voluntary sector organisations have been awarded £120,000 over the next two years to provide information and support to people living with the virus. The successful organisations are Positive Place in Deptford, African Health for Empowerment and Development (AHEAD) and the African Community Involvement Association (ACIA) in Mitcham.
Pictured (l to r) are the project workers: Evelyn Saunders (Positive Place voluntary support worker), Kuba Kuba Pambu (AHEAD), Love Ngenda (ACIA) and Rachel Nkama (Positive Place). Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, said that it is important for people in this country to remember the invaluable work done by immigrants, for instance foreign nurses and doctors within the NHS, and not just blame others for Britain’s problems. For details, call ACIA on 020 687 2400, AHEAD on 020 8316 4868 or Positive Place on 020 8694 9988. |
 Health Secretary: John Reid MP |
The offer of ex-gratia payments to people who were infected with hepatitis C by the NHS has been criticised by campaigners as being too little and too late.
Health Secretary John Reid (below) announced last month that people infected with hepatitis C (HCV) from NHS blood or blood products will be eligible for ex-gratia payments of £20,000 and a further £25,000 if they have developed advanced liver disease.
The Haemophilia Society explained that 4,865 people were exposed to HCV by receiving contaminated blood within the NHS in the 1980s and early 1990s and over 90 per cent of these went on to develop chronic disease. 1,200 of these were also infected with HIV and 800 have since died.
“ We have seen a total of 232 deaths due to liver disease and nearly one half of these were also co-infected with HIV,” the Society said.
Public Health Minister Melanie Johnson defended the offer on BBC’s ‘Woman’s Hour’ and said that people infected with HIV via contaminated blood products were given £20,000 over ten years ago.
A test to identify HCV was only available in 1991, she said.
Only 2,829 of those infected with HCV were still living as of January 2000 and the offer does not apply to widows or those caring for people who have died.
The Haemophilia Society says the government’s offer falls far short of recommendations of an expert panel led by Lord Ross in Scotland and their own proposals of an average £140,000 per person infected.
One of the widows, Harriet Bullock, whose husband died five years ago, said the disease devastated her family’s life financially and emotionally and led to a painful and unnecessary death for her husband.
“ I’m pleased the government has recognised the issue of hepatitis C among the haemophilia population and the misery that contaminated NHS blood products has caused.
“But I don’t understand why they have excluded the dependants of those who have died,” Mrs Bullock added.
Another widow added: “No one has ever said sorry.”
The Department of Health has announced that it will launch a campaign to encourage people to be tested for hepatitis C infection.
Up to 500,000 people are thought to be chronically infected with hepatitis C in the UK, and 90 per cent do not know it. Although one in five people recover after being exposed to the virus, most become chronically infected. Over a number of years they risk developing serious liver disease and liver cancer.
The
UK-based charity Hope and Homes organised a celebrity auction at Christie’s
in London last month to raise funds for its projects to find homes for
Aids and war orphans in Eastern Europe and Africa. The auction was hosted
by Lord Carrington and attended by lords and ladies as well as London’s
art elite. The auction raised over £12,000 for the charity. For details,
visit: www.hopeandhomes.org