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UK maintains the largest HIV epidemic in western Europe...
Gus Cairns, 2015-12-15 08:40:00
The annual surveillance report released recently by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) shows that the number and rate of new diagnoses of HIV is continuing to rise in eastern Europe, and is also rising sharply, though from a much lower base, in central Europe.
Meanwhile the annual number of new diagnoses is stable in western Europe, but continues to increase in gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in most central and western European countries.
In eastern Europe the HIV epidemic is changing from being one concentrated in people who inject drugs (PWIDs) into one that is spreading into the general heterosexual population and especially into women. However because few men in that area report sex with other men, this increase in sexual transmission may incorporate, and conceal, an increasing MSM epidemic too.
In terms of absolute numbers of both new and cumulative diagnoses, the UK is the most badly-affected large country in the European Union and in western Europe. The UK’s rate of HIV per head of population is only exceeded by the small countries of Luxembourg, Latvia and Estonia: in the latter two cases, infection rates among large epidemics driven by drug injection are falling. Overall, annual diagnoses in the EU and the European Economic Area (which includes Norway and Iceland) appear overall to be stable or falling slightly.
In central Europe, HIV prevalence in a group of low-prevalence countries is rising sharply, with new infections concentrated almost entirely in MSM. The island of Malta is also experiencing a sudden increase in MSM cases.
Source:1
