HIV in the UK

HIV can affect anybody, but in the UK most people with HIV come from two groups:

• men who have sex with men
• people of sub-Saharan African origin.

Gay men are the group most affected by HIV in the UK. However, since 2003 more of the people newly diagnosed with HIV in the UK became infected through heterosexual sex than gay sex. The majority of these became infected with HIV when they were abroad.

While these groups are high profile, it is important not to forget the other people who are living with HIV. Around 1,800 people became infected through injecting drugs. Just over 1,000 children in the country have HIV because it was passed on from their mothers, and about 700 people got infected through blood transfusions and blood products.

The Health Protection Agency estimates that about 30% of the people in the UK living with HIV do not know that they have become infected.

You can find out more details on the UK pages of the Facts and statistics area.

HIV worldwide

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has estimated that there are up to 40 million people living with HIV in the world. Seventy percent of them live in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the three worst affected countries - Botswana, Swaziland and Zimbabwe - about one in three people is living with the virus. In comparison, there is no country outside Africa where more than one in 20 people is living with the virus.

However, although Africa continues to be the worst-affected region, many of the countries with the highest rates of growth are outside Africa. These include India, China, Russia and most of the other former Soviet states.

A further breakdown is available on the Worldwide pages of the Facts and statistics area.