- The National Aids Trust has warned that
people in the UK are becoming complacent about the dangers of HIV and Aids.
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- The number of new cases per year have
reached a "plateau", but organisations that work with the disease
are concerned because numbers of fresh infections should be falling.
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- Latest figures show that 2,800 people
contracted HIV in the UK last year, in line with the persistently high
rate of the last five years.
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- Most infections continue to be among
gay and bisexual men. However, there is an increase in the numbers of heterosexuals
infected.
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- Since 1990, more than 20,000 people have
been diagnosed with the virus, which is a precursor to developing full-blown
Aids.
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- Director of the National Aids Trust Derek
Bodell told Radio 5 Live that "a degree of complacency" had developed,
because "people think HIV is over".
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- "We're not seeing the big campaigns
that we were in the mid-80s," he said.
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- "I think we've now got a whole new
generation who think that HIV is not the issue that it was for the generation
before them."
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- 'New system of reporting'
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- But Mr Bodell said that a "big blitz
campaign" was probably not the answer, but rather "a consistent
level of information for people to realise that HIV remains a risk for
them".
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- He said that figures for new infections
were higher this year because of a new system of reporting, but added that
a constant level of infections was still bad because the disease is "preventable".
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- "People with new treatments are
living healthier and longer and that's good news, but I think it has had
its down side," he said.
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- "I sense that people have seen these
new treatments and said to themselves: 'Maybe HIV isn't the problem that
it used to be.' That isn't the message we want to get across."
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