The Health Protection Agency has released worrying figures regarding HIV testing in the UK, which reveal that one fifth of British people offered a HIV test will refuse to take it. In 2010, one quarter of those infected with the virus in Britain did not know they had it and people are being treated far too late into their condition, therefore not giving their bodies the best of chances of coping with HIV and also increasing the risk of passing the virus onto others. Furthermore, the number of men who have sex with men testing positive is the highest it has ever been.
In the UK, one in twenty gay men is infected with the virus and that number is even higher in London where one in eleven men are believed to be HIV positive. Over half of the men and women who tested positive well into their condition last year were past the stage that health professionals would consider the optimum for treatment to commence.
The Health Protection Agency therefore wishes to promote the idea of universal testing in GP practices for new patients and where patients are admitted to hospital in areas around Britain that are deemed at high risk.
Looking at these statistics, this seems like a worthy request and especially when we hear that only 4% of England’s population were tested for the virus in 2010. A spokesperson for the National Aids Trust rightly suggested that people are scared of being tested but instead should be fearful about living with undiagnosed HIV. With only 4% of English people having taken a test in 2010 and one fifth declining the offer, it is high time British people woke up to the problem instead of watching infection rates increase and presuming that they themselves are impervious to the virus.