Risk groups
An estimated 58,300 adults were living with HIV in the UK at the end of 2004, of whom 19,700 (34%) were unaware of their infection.
In 2005, there were at least 5,560 new diagnoses of HIV, contributing to a cumulative total of 76,850 reported by the end of the year.
There have been 21,898 diagnoses of AIDS in the UK. It is known that at least 13,346 of these people have died. It should be noted that the difference between these figures does not provide a very accurate estimate of the number of people living with AIDS in the UK:
Men who have sex with men
Men who have sex with men remain the group at greatest risk. Today these figures amount to more than 2,000 per year.As of the end of December 2005, 35,767 men who have sex with men have been diagnosed with HIV in the UK. It has been estimated that, at the end of 2004, about 45% of all people living with HIV in the UK were men who had sex with men.
Heterosexuals
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 2005, there were 2,878 reports of heterosexually acquired HIV, and a total of 30,381 had been reported by the end of December 2005.
Injecting Drug Users
During 2005, a reported 112 people were diagnosed with HIV probably acquired through injecting drug use. By the end of December 2005, reports showed that 4,392 people had acquired HIV by this route.
In total, 1,808 people had been reported as infected through treatment blood/tissue transfer or blood factor by the end of December 2005. Of these, 80% were diagnosed before 1990.
Children born to HIV infected mothers
A total of 6,425 children born to HIV infected mothers had been reported by the end of December 2005. Of these, 1,339 had contracted AIDS or been diagnosed with HIV infection.
