Britain has seen a massive drop in the number of new cases of HIV that involve men who have sex with men.

The latest figures were presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2019) in Seattle yesterday.

Dana Ogaz of Public Health England shared that the number of new cases of HIV being detected at Sexual Health Clinics in the UK has been dropping for a number of years and hopefully indicate a breakthrough in tackling the virus.

The figures presented come from routinely collected data from gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) who attend the same sexual health clinic twice or more in the same year.

In any given year, this is around a third of the MSM who use the clinic. However, they may not be representative of the wider population of MSM.

The fall in new HIV diagnosis corresponds with the introduction of Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) treatment becoming available.

While HIV cases are dropping, other sexually transmitted infections are on the rise. Between 2012 and 2017, there was a 90% increase in gonorrhoea diagnoses, 80% increase in chlamydia diagnoses and 160% increase in syphilis diagnoses among gay men attending sexual health clinics.

Read more about the report at AIDS Map

OIP Staff